■ 



■ 



■ 






I ft**. 



■ ■ 



A 

DISCOURSE 



OF THE 



Baconian Philosophy. 



By SAMUEL TYLER, LL. D. 

II 

Professor in the Law School of Columbian University, Washington City, D.C. Author of "The Progres 
of Philosophy in the Past and in the Future;" "Memoir of Chief Justice Taney," &c, &c. 



ought to be eternally resolved and settled, that the understanding cannot 
,cide otherwise than by Induction, and by a legitimate form of it.— Bacon. 

We must guide our steps by a clew, and the whole path, from the very first 
perceptions of our senses, must be secured by a determined method.— 76. 



THIRD EDITION. 



WASHINGTON: 

W. H. & O. H. Morrison. 
Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 

187 7. 



^ 



ft\ 



^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

SAMUEL TYLER, LL. D. 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Printed by 

John Murphy & Co. 

Baltimore. 



DEDICATION. 



To Dr. Grafton Tyler, 

Georgetown, D. C. 

Beloved Brother: — Oar pleasures and our inter- 
ests have always been so identified, that I cannot but 
desire that your name may be associated with mine, 
in a work which has amused so many of my leisure 
moments, and made it necessary that I should look 
over some of the ancient Greek and Roman authors, 
where almost every page suggested to me the time 
when we first read them over together, and like our 
play-grounds, brought back to my mind, the happy 
days of our youth. To you then, whom of all men, 
God has made nearest to me, in that we are the only 
children of our parents; and as the nearness of our 
relation has been so excellently illustrated in your 
brotherly love, which has contributed so much to my 
happiness through our childhood, and our youth, and 
increases as we walk up the hill of life together, I 
dedicate these reflections of my leisure hours, hoping 
that the doctrines set forth, may receive the sanction 
of a judgment, that is so certain a measure of truth as 
yours. Your brother, 

SAMUEL TYLER. 

The above dedication to the firs't edition is extended to this 
edition, to denote the unchanging affection between my brother 
and myself, through all the vicissitudes of life. 

S. T. 

Frederick City, Md., 1877. 

3 



1 //*? 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

2S~~ 



Analytical Introduction, 



PART THE FIRST. 

The Influence of the Baconian Philosophy. — Some one 
nation always at the head of the rest. England at the head of 
modern civilization. In modern civilization there have "been 
three great revolutions : the religious, the philosophical and the 
political. The philosophical revolution originated in England. 
Lord Bacon stands at the head of this movement. The object of 
is revolution. Bacon's writings — their publication and their 
•dilation. Royal Society of London. The leading discoveries 
' the physical sciences made in England. These discoveries 
^numerated, and the method of their discovery pointed out. 
These discoveries objects of the most delightful contemplation. 
Contrast between the physical discoveries of the ancients and 
the moderns as objects of intellectual contemplation. Baconian 
philosophy practical. The application of its discoveries to the 
mechanic arts. The benefits conferred on England by the Ba- 
conian philosophy. This philosophy not confined to physical 
nature ; but embraces intellectual and moral science. The 
opinion that this philosophy leads to a mean standard of beauty, 
refuted ; and the question examined at large, both by philoso- 
phical /in alysis and historical fact. English literature examined, 
and its distinguishing features pointed out. The opinion that 
the Baconian philosophy leads to materialism and atheism re- 
futed. The Baconian philosophy likely to form the type of 
universal civilization. 

PART THE SECOND. — CHAPTER I. 

The Baconian Method of Investigation. — The Aristote- 
lian logic. The reasoning process in its form, is the syllogism. 
All reasoning proceeds by comparison. The fundamental prin- 

1* 5 



b TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

ciple of the syllogism. Bacon did not design to teach a new 
mode of reasoning, but a new mode of investigation. The a 
priori method of investigation nothing more than a misappli- 
cation of the Aristotelian logic. The influence of the a priori 
method of investigation upon philosophy. Bacon appears. His 
instauration of the sciences. The Novum Organum, its object, 
the spirit of its philosophy and the nature of its method of inves- 
tigation. This method called Induction. It is the reverse of the 
syllogism. Analysis and synthesis considered, and both shown 
to be inductive processes. The application of mathematics to the 
inductive sciences considered. Induction carried on by prin- 
ciples of evidence and not by principles of logic. The nature of 
analogy considered. The inductive process founded on analogy. 
The great fundamental principle of philosophical evidence devel- 
oped ; and it is shown to bear the same relation to induction 
that the fundamental principle of logic does to the syllogism. 
"Whether Bacon discovered the inductive process considered. 

PART THE SECOND. — CHAPTER II. 

The Theory of Mind assumed in the Baconian method 
oe Investigation. — Only two theories of mind, the theory of 
innate ideas, and the theory, that all our knowledge is founded 
ultimately upon experience. The theory of innate ideas, is the 
theory of mind assumed in the a priori method of investigation ; 
and the theory, that all our knowledge is founded upon expe- 
rience, is that assumed in the Baconian method of investigation. 
Plato the leading Philosopher amongst the ancients, and Des 
Cartes amongst the moderns, who maintained the theory of 
innate ideas. Both these Philosophers maintained the a priori 
method of investigation. Bacon's theory of mind, the same with 
that of Lncke and Beid. They all maintained the theory that 
all our knowledge is founded upon experience. Locke solved 
the fundamental problem of psychology ; and Beid developed 
the fundamental laws of belief The Baconian method of inves- 
tigation the psychological correlative of the theory of mind that 
all our knowledge is founded ultimately upon experience. The 
philosophy of Kant examined; also the Physio-Philosophy of 
Oken. 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION, 

The purpose of this discourse is not to teach science, 
but to impart to the mind a scientific habit and a taste for 
the study of nature. This edition has been prepared with 
special reference to this purpose. It is an introduction 
to the study of physics. 

In the first part of this discourse, we have set forth, as 
the leading truth, that the Baconian philosophy has for its 
primary object. the investigation of the laws of the material 
world, and the application of these laws, through the instru- 
mentality of the useful arts, to the physical well-being of 
man. That this philosophy does not think it beneath its 
dignity, to solve the homely problems : " What shall we 
eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithall shall we be 
clothed ? " But admitting that philosophers, like other 
people, must feed their hunger and clothe their nakedness, 
it teaches how to make with more facility and in greater 
abundance, the food and raiment necessary for our bodies, 
and proclaims not in whispers, but in its very loudest 
accents, that Franklin did not more fully exemplify the 
true spirit of philosophy when he brought down fire from 
heaven, than Fulton did, when he yoked it to the car of 
commerce. 

And as England originated the great philosophical 
movement of which we are speaking, and stands at the 
head of modern civilization, we have cited the chief dis- 
coveries in the sciences made by the Anglo-Saxon race, 
and then showed how these discoveries, by their applica- 
tion to the useful arts, have extended the dominion of man 
over the empire of nature, and in this way conferred on 
England so much wealth and power. 

7 



8 ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 

After thus showing the connection of the Baconian phi- 
losophy with the useful arts, and how much it has through 
them, contributed to the physical comforts of man, we 
next show that this philosophy does not lead to a selfish 
morality, as some have alleged ; but that in all its prin- 
ciples, and in all its aims, it tends to produce a noble and 
disinterested morality. The next question discussed, is the 
bearing of this philosophy upon the arts of beauty; and it 
is shown by an analysis of its fundamental principles, that 
it maintains a most exalted ideal. And this fact is further 
proved and illustrated, by spreading out in microscopic 
view, the literature of England with all its rich and various 
and masculine beauties, which has grown up under the 
influence of the spirit of this philosophy. 

We next defend this philosophy from the charge of 
materialism and atheism with which it is so often assailed, 
and show that this charge has no foundation either in its 
principles or the influence which it has actually exerted 
upon the opinions of men ; for that the nation which has 
most assiduously cultivated it, has also done more to 
advance the doctrines of natural theology, than any nation 
known to history. 

We conclude this part of the discourse, by showing that 
the Baconian philosophy is not like the ancient philoso- 
phies, adapted to the culture of one epoch and one people 
only ; but that like Christianity it is catholic in its spirit 
and equally suited to all times and to every people, and 
that it is likely to extend its blessings to all nations, and 
gather them under its wings as a hen doth gather her 
chickens. 

In the second part of the discourse, we enter upon the 
consideration of the Baconian method of investigation. 
This part is divided into two chapters. The first chapter 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 9 

treats in the first place, of the Aristotelian Logic, and 
shows that it analyzes the reasoning process, and develops 
the form in which every argument passes through the mind, 
and that this form is the syllogism. It then shows, that 
Vhe truth of the conclusion of an argument is always 
assumed in the premises, and is not in reality a new truth ; 
but merely a particular instance of a general truth already 
known, and stated in the premises. It is then shown that 
the a priori method of investigation is nothing more than 
a misapplication of the Aristotelian logic as a method of 
investigation. The effect of this misapplication upon an- 
cient philosophy, is then shown, and the peculiar errors 
produced by it, pointed out. This effect is then traced 
down through the middle ages of European history, and 
the futility of the philosophy of that period is signalized. 

We next enter upon the consideration of the method of 
investigation taught by Bacon in the Novum Organum, and 
show that it is just the reverse of the syllogistic method of 
Aristotle, which had been previously used. It is shown 
that the Baconian method of investigation proceeds from 
particulars to universals, and that the syllogistic or a priori 
method proceeds from universals to particulars. And it is 
shown that the Baconian method of investigation is not a 
process of reasoning at all — is not carried on by rules of 
logic ; but is carried on by rules of evidence. And that 
though the mathematics are applied to ihe verification of 
the inferences of induction in the physical sciences, that 
still this does not take those sciences out of the pale of 
induction and put them within the precincts of reasoning: 
the reasoning process being in such application of the 
mathematics, a mere touch-stone to test the truth of the 
inductive conclusions, and not to elicit any new conclusion 
not already reached by induction. Analysis and synthesis 



10 ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 

are also considered ; and are shown to be in the sciences 
of contingent truth, inductive processes and not processes 
of reasoning, and that they are what Bacon called the 
ascending and descending processes of induction. And 
as we show that induction is carried on by means of prin-* 
ciples of evidence and not by principles of logic, we enter 
upon the consideration of the nature of philosophical evi- 
dence ; and show that all evidence may be divided into 
analogy and identity ; and that the whole inductive pro- 
cess, as long as that process is founded on mere proba- 
bility, no matter how great is the probability, proceeds 
on analogical evidence. And we show that all the great 
discoveries in physical science have been made by the 
evidence of analogy. We then distinguish between philo- 
sophical analogy, and rhetorical analogy ; and show that 
the distinction is an important one, and that for want 
of this distinction men have continually fallen into error. 
And finally we evolve out of our analysis of the inductive 
process, the great fundamental principle of philosophical 
evidence, which bears the same relation to induction, that 
the Dictum de omni et nullo of Aristotle, does to the 
syllogism. And thus we have rendered induction just as 
systematic as Aristotle did the syllogism. And surely it 
is much more difficult to develop a principle which shall 
embrace in its application the innumerable particular in- 
stances which occur in every science or department of 
nature, and show the connection between them and the 
inductive inference properly inferrible for them, than it is 
to develop a principle w T hich shall show the connection 
between the premises and conclusion of an argument : and 
therefore such a principle is so much the more important. 
Mr. Macaulay in his celebrated review of Bacon's writ- 
ings seemed to think that no such principle as the one just 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 11 

mentioned could be developed — that no precise rule can be 
given, marking the difference between instances from which 
a sound inductive inference can be drawn, and instances 
from which such an inference cannot be drawn. And with 
a levity characterized more by the spirit of a coquette, than 
of a philosopher — with strong words and weak arguments 
— he has attempted to ridicule by the reduciio ad absur- 
dum, the value of Bacon's delineation of the inductive pro- 
cess in the second book of the Novum Organum. He 
amuses himself, and as he supposed, his readers too, with a 
ludicrous caricature of the inductive process, in showing 
that it is by it, that a man finds out that he has been made 
sick by the mince pies which he had eaten. It w r ould have 
been quite as philosophical, to have attempted to depre- 
ciate the inductive process, by showing that it was by that 
process, that Hudibras arrived at the conclusion that it was 
not necessary to have more than one spur ; because he had 
ascertained by actual experiment, that one side of his horse 
could not move without the other, and that, therefore, if 
one spur could make one side go, it would make the other 
go too. Mr. Macaulay well knows that ridicule is not 
argument. And doubtless he would readily perceive, that 
the fact, that Hudibras 

" by geometric scale, 



Could take the size of pots of ale ; 
Resolve by signs and tangents, straight, 
If bread or butter wanted weight," 

does not detract from the dignity of Newton's Principia or 
prove that the rules of geometry are useless. And yet he 
does not perceive the folly of attacking by ridicule, the 
development of induction which Bacon has given in the 
second book of the Novum Organum. But smitten with 



12 ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 

the ambition of critical display, he sacrifices truth to rhet« 
oric. And in his attempts to reduce to absurdity, the 
reasonings of others, he plunges into that predicament 
himself. Flying upon the wings of antithesis, and in his 
onward course showing first one wing of the antithesis and 
then the other, in order that his readers may admire the 
brilliancy of their contrast, and more intent upon the gran- 
deur of his flight than the point to which he is moving, he 
is sometimes carried to the most preposterous conclusions. 
And on the point which we are now examining he goes the 
whole length of declaring that grammar and logic and rhet- 
oric are useless studies. When it is a knowledge of these 
very studies, which has strengthened and plumed his own 
wings, and enabled him to soar aloft so boldly and grace- 
fully, that we cannot but admire his flight, even when it is 
beyond the regions of truth and common sense. 

But not content with ridiculing induction by general 
remarks, Mr. Macaulay, as if to signalize its absurdity, 
ridicules it in all its details, until his criticism rivals in the 
minuteness of its anatomy, the celebrated curse which Dr. 
Slop, at the request of Mr. Shandy, read aloud, to the so 
great horror of my uncle Toby. "We have heard (says 
he) that an eminent judge of the last generation was in the 
habit of jocosely propounding after dinner a theory, that 
the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism was the practice 
of bearing three names. He quoted on the one side 
Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John 
Home Tooke, John Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Cole- 
ridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone: these were instantice conve- 
nientes. He then proceeded to cite instances absentise in 
proxime : William Pitt, John Scott, William Wyndham, 
Samuel Horsely, Henry Dundas, Edmund Burke. He 
might have gone on to instances secundum magis et 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 13 

minus. The practice of giving children three names is 
more common in America than England. In England we 
have a King and a House of Lords, but the Americans are 
republicans Tne rejectiones are obvious. Burke and 
Theobald Wolfe Tone were both Irishmen ; therefore the 
being an Irishman, is not the cause of Jacobinism. 
Horsely and Home Tooke were both clergymen ; there- 
fore the being a clergyman, is not the cause of Jacobinism. 
Fox and Wyndham were both educated at Oxford ; and 
therefore the being educated at Oxford, is not the cause of 
Jacobinism. In this way our inductive philosopher arrives 
at what Bacon calls the vintage, and pronounces that the 
having three names is the cause of Jacobinism. " 

" Here is an induction corresponding with Bacon's analy- 
sis, and ending in a monstrous absuidity. In what, then 
does this induction differ from the induction which leads us 
to the conclusion that the presence of the sun is the cause 
of our having more light by day than night ! The differ- 
ence evidently is not in the kind of instances, but in the 
number of instances ; that is to say, the difference is not in 
that part of the process for which Bacon has given precise 
rules, but in a circumstance, for which no precise rule can 
possibly be given, " Now we join issue with Mr. Macaulay 
and say that it is the kind of instances as well as the num- 
ber of instances which constitute the difference between the 
two cases which he puts. For if the instances of the three 
names had been as numerous as the whole Jacobin party, 
though it would have been a marvellous coincidence, yet 
no man in his senses would have believed that the bearing 
three names was the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism ; 
and simply because, the instances are not of the kind from 
which an inductive inference can be drawn : they being 
the mere coincidence of chance, and not kindred facts con- 
2 



14 ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 

joined by a law of nature. It is true that if every Jacobin 
had born three names, is might have been inferred that 
there was some cause for such a conjunction of facts ; that 
their parents, perhaps, from some common motive gave 
their children three names, just as the old Puritans from a 
common motive gave their children whole verses of scrip- 
ture for names. But under no circumstances whatever 
could it be inferred that the bearing three names was the 
cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism. The fact that the 
presence of the sun is the cause of more light by day than 
night is a fact in nature, and is supported as every fact in 
nature always is, by innumerable analogies. But is the 
naming children a fact in nature — a work of the Creator? 
Is the bearing three names and the being a Jacobin, a 
relation established by the Creator of the universe ? Is 
there any analogy in nature from which it can be inferred 
that the one is the cause of the other ? Certainly none. 
It might as well be supposed that the wearing pantaloons 
is the cause of one person's being a man, and the wearing 
petticoats, the cause of another person's being a woman, 
as that the bearing three names is the cause of one's being 
a Jacobin. 

This then is the difference between the two kinds of 
instances, and " the circumstance for which a precise rule 
can be given :" the one is the constant connection between 
two facts in nature, the other, the casual coincidence of 
two' fads totally irrelevant, and dependent on the acts of 
man. Their difference is perceived intuitively, and there- 
fore cannot be made plainer by illustration. Our remarks 
in the discourse, on analogy, appear to us, to throw light 
upon the subject. 

Mr. Macaulay, after exhausting his weapons of ridicule 
becomes very serious and says, " that the difference between 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 15 

a sound and unsound, or, to use the Baconian phraseology, 
between the interpretation of nature and the anticipation 
of nature, does not lie in this — that the interpreter of 
nature goes through the process analyzed in the second 
book of the Novum Organum and the anticipator through 
a different process. They both perform the same process. 
But the anticipator performs it foolishly or carelessly ; 
the interpreter performs it with patience, attention and 
sagacity, and judgment. Now precepts can do little to- 
wards making men patient and attentive, and still less 
towards making them sagacious and judicious." Now these 
sober remarks of Mr. Macaulay are not entitled to one tittle 
more respect as exhibitions of truth than those which we 
have been examining. Precepts of no use ! Why, are not 
precept and example the only guide of man ? And is not 
the whole force of example in its being the expression of a 
precept ? The mere general precept which lies at the 
foundation of the Baconian philosophy, that we should 
scrutinize with caution the phenomena of nature, before 
we draw our inferences, has revolutionized philosophy ; 
and yet it is gravely asserted, by one of the most brilliant 
writers and adroit critics of the age, that precepts are use- 
less in philosophical investigations, and in everything else. 
We readily admit that as long as induction is confined to 
ascertaining what article of diet has made a man sick, or 
whether one side of a horse can move without the other, 
precepts are of very little use. But then it must be remem- 
bered that induction " resembles the tent which the fairy 
Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it, and it seemed 
a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it, and the armies of 
powerful Sultans might repose beneath its shade." When 
it is the toy for the hand of a lady, we may use it without 
the aid of precepts, but when it is spread out so that the 



16 ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 

armies of powerful Sultans may repose beneath its shade, 
we cannot manage it by our unaided strength. 

Having thus, in the first chapter of the second part of 
the discourse, considered the Baconian method of investi- 
gation, in the second chapter, we consider the theory of 
mind assumed in that method. We show, there never has 
been, and that there never can be, more than two theories 
of mind : and these two theories are the theory of innate 
ideas, and the theory that all our knowledge is founded 
ultimately in experience.* We show that the theory of 
innate ideas is the theory assumed in the a priori method 
of investigation ; and that the theory that all our know- 
ledge is founded ultimately in experience, is that assumed 
in the Baconian method of investigation. It is shown that 
Plato was the leading philosopher amongst the ancients and 
Des Cartes amongst the moderns, who maintained the 
theory of innate ideas, and that both these philosophers 
maintained the a priori method of investigation. It is 
next shown that Bacon had a distinct view of the theory of 
mind that all our knowledge is founded ultimately in expe- 
rience ; and that is the theory of mind which has been 
developed by Locke and Reid. We show that Locke 
solved the great fundamental problem of this theory of 
mind, and showed that all our knowledge originates in sen- 
sation and consciousness. And that Reid established this 
theory still more firmly by developing the great psychologi- 
cal laws which lie at the foundation of this theory, and 
which govern human belief in the knowledge derived 
through these original sources of information. He devel- 
oped the law which governs our belief in the testimony of 

♦The theory which ascribes to the human mind the power of knowing 
the absolute, is ignored, as it denies ail logical validity to the inductive 
method, and, therefore, cannot be considered in relation to induction. 



ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION. 17 

sensation and the law which governs our belief in the testi- 
mony of consciousness. He also developed the law which 
governs our belief in the testimony of memory and the law 
which governs our belief, that the future will be like the 
past, and that like causes will produce like effects. This 
last is the fundamental law of. induction. And thus we 
trace up the Baconian method of investigation through the 
theory of mind which it assumes in every step of knowledge 
until we trace the process up to the very first impressions 
made upon the senses, and we show the psychological law 
for every act of the mind in the process. We next examine 
the philosophy of Kant, and show that his doctrine of a 
priori conceptions of the reason, has the same logical 
characteristics as the doctrine of innate ideas, and that it 
assumes the a priori method of investigation. We, in 
conclusion, exhibit the last phase into which the a priori 
method of investigation has culminated, by an analysis of 
the Physio-Philosophy of Oken ; a product of that method 
in its last phase. 



2* 



K v, 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 



PART THE FIRST. 



Influence of the Baconian Philosophy, 

In every age of the world, since the human family- 
has been so numerous as to be divided into separate 
communities, some one nation has exerted a predomi- 
nant influence over the rest. This appears to be the 
economy of civilization. The Grecian Republics (for 
they all were but one nation) and Rome, in their suc- 
cessive order in history, have, of all the nations of 
antiquity, exerted the most important influence on the 
destinies of man. But, in modern times a new order 
of civilization has arisen ; and for more than two cen- 
turies, England has stood at the head of this new order 
of things. Enthroned upon the riches of a universal 
commerce, enlightened by the knowledge of every 
science, armed with the power, and accomplished with 
the embellishments of . every art — baptized into the 
spirit of Christianity, she is influencing and control- 
ling the destinies of the human race towards a glorious 
consummation. 

In the progress of this civilization, there have been 
three great revolutions, the religious, the philosophical 
18 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 19 

and the political. After the human mind had thrown 
off the authority of the Papal Church, the authority 
of the ancient philosophers still remained ; and what 
Luther did in the emancipation of the mind from the 
first, Bacon did in the emancipation of the mind from 
the last. Luther burnt the Pope's bull in 1520, and 
Bacon published his Novum Organum in 1620. The 
religious revolution, therefore, preceded the philoso- 
phical, and both of these, the political. Not, however, 
that these revolutions did not move on simultaneously; 
but, that in their progress, one was in advance of the 
other, in the order which w r e have indicated. Though 
they grew together they differed in maturity. Their 
crises were successive. Perhaps, the divine wisdom is 
displayed in this order of things — perhaps any other 
order is impossible in the moral economy of the world: 
it being necessary that the restraints upon man should 
be thrown off, not all at once, but separately, as he 
advances in mental and moral improvement. These, 
then, are the movements which Europe has made in 
civilization. She has thrown off religious despotism, 
she has thrown off philosophical despotism, she has 
thrown off political despotism. And she has advanced 
to this position, through many a bloody agony. The 
treasures of the industry of ages have been spent, the 
chivalry of thousands of heroes, the studies by day and 
by night of scholars and philosophers, the genius. of 
poets exhibiting in their compositions those actions 
which ennoble the soul, the patriotic and humane sen- 
timents of orators clothed in the thunders of impas- 
sioned diction — all theee have been spent in purchasing 



20 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the civilization of modern Europe. It becomes then, 
an important inquiry to ascertain the character of the 
philosophy of that people, into whose keeping, so far 
as human agency is concerned, the destinies of Europe 
appear, in the progress of history, to have been con- 
fided by divine providence. 

We will, therefore, pass over the religious and 
political revolutions, and even the literature of modern 
times, and confine ourselves entirely to the philosophi- 
cal revolution which originated in England, and which 
is exerting so important an influence over the destinies 
of man, through the agency of that great people. 

We propose then, to sketch the rise and progress of 
the most wonderful philosophical revolution, and the 
most glorious in its results upon the pursuits and hap- 
piness of man, of any within the whole history of the 
world. We propose to give some account of the phi- 
losophy of utility — the philosophy of lightning rods, 
of steam engines, safety lamps, spinning jennies and 
cotton jins — the philosophy which has covered the 
barren hills and the sterile rocks in verdure, and the 
deserts with fertility — which has clothed the naked, 
fed the hungry, and healed the sick — the philosophy 
of peace, which is converting the sword into the prun- 
ing hook, and the spear into the ploughshare. 

It was Lord Bacon, who launched the human mind 
upon this new career of discovery. He is the great 
reformer, who stands at the head of the teachers of 
this philosophy. Physical nature seemed perfectly 
impenetrable to the acutest intellects of the ancients. 
They could not get over even the threshold of physical 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 21 

science. Indeed, they cannot be said to have had any 
natural philosophy at all ; so absurd were all their 
doctrines about physical nature. Neither did the phi- 
losophers of the middle ages, with all their assiduity, 
succeed in exploring this field of knowledge. And, 
though the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo 
and Tycho Brahe show that Providence was preparing 
the way for a new era in physical science, and the dis- 
coveries of Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century indi- 
cate the same fact, yet it remained for Lord Bacon to 
generalize the idea which philosophers were beginning 
to see obscurely and in single instances, and to reveal 
to the philosophical world, what it had been prepared 
to comprehend : — That true philosophy must be con- 
nected with the arts, that while it satisfies the highest 
faculties of the speculative intellect it may be applied 
to the physical wants, and the general well-being of 
man. That living as we do in a world where general 
and permanent laws obtain, and under their dominion, 
it is the object of natural philosophy to ascertain these 
laws, in order that we may not, in our endeavors to 
promote our comforts, act against these laws, and thus 
attempt impossibilities; and also, that " these laws are 
not only invincible opponents, but irresistible auxilia- 
ries." Bacon wished to make every power of nature 
work for man, the winds, the waters, gravity, heat 
and all the mighty energies, which lie like the fabled 
giants of old under the mountains. These he wished 
to unloose from their fetters, and bring as servants 
under the dominion of man. Such are the grand con- 
ceptions which Bacon proclaimed to the world. 



22 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

Scarcely had Bacon published his writings before 
they were republished upon the continent of Europe. 
The treatise De Augmentis was republished in France 
in 1624, the year after its appearance in England; and 
it was translated into French 1632. Editions were 
also published in Holland in 1645, 1652 and 1662. 
The Novum Organum was thrice printed in Holland, 
in 1645, 1650 and 1660; and men of every cast in the 
higher walks of life on the continent of Europe were 
conversant with his writings. Gassendi, Des Cartes, 
Richelieu, Voiture, and at a later period Leibnitz, 
Boerhave and Puffendorf were loud in his praise. 
Indeed, his fame spread beyond the bounds of his 
own country, more rapidly than that of any philoso- 
pher within the whole history of letters. What an 
impulse then, must the philosophy of Bacon have 
given directly and indirectly to the progress of the 
human mind upon the continent of Europe; for its 
advances there, have been made by pursuing the 
Baconian method of investigation ! But let us see 
the progress of his philosophy in England, and cite 
some examples of the leading discoveries which have 
been made by the Anglo-Saxon race. 

Not long after the death of Lord Bacon, in 1626, 
the Royal Society of London was established for the 
promotion of the sciences, and all England resounded 
with his praise. The philosophers of England almost 
adored his genius. They felt that he had a true Eng- 
lish mind. That he was the father of English philoso- 
phy. That the English mind had at last given to it a 
method of philosophizing suited to its practical and 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 23 

common sense turn. And, behold the results written 
upon the glorious records of English philosophy! 

In every department of physical science, England 
has made the leading discoveries; and other nations, 
though their scientific labors have been so brilliant, 
have done little more than extended her researches and 
verify her theories. In physiology, the two greatest 
discoveries were made by philosophers of the British 
isle. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, 
and published his treatise Exercitatio de motu cordis, as 
early as 1628. He was the contemporary and intimate 
friend of Bacon. Sir Charles Bell discovered that 
there are two distinct sets of nerves, those of sensation 
and those of motion. And it is worthy of remark that 
both these great discoveries, so important to medical 
science, were discovered by considerations founded 
upon the evidence of final causes. Harvey discovered 
the circulation of the blood, by reflecting on the use 
of those valves in the veins whose structure is such as 
to prevent the reflux of the blood towards the extremi- 
ties. And Sir Charles Bell tells us in a note to his 
Bridgewater treatise on the hand, that the views taken 
of the nervous system in the chapter of that work on 
"Sensibility and Touch," where the uses and endow- 
ments of the different nerves are considered, guided 
him in his original experiments by which he estab- 
lished the great doctrine, that there are two sets of 
nerves prevading the whole animal system. By obser- 
vation and experiment, he had ascertained that each 
nerve of sense has a distinct endowment, so that one 
nerve can never subserve the purpose of another, the 



24 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

nerve of vision, for example, can never serve for hear- 
ing, nor that of taste for smelling^ and so forth. And 
he further observed, that each of these nerves arose 
from a distinct part of the brain. He therefore con- 
cluded, that for the brain at least, different nerves 
have different functions derived from the spots whence 
they originate. It therefore occurred to him, that 
perhaps the two ,great nervous functions of the body, 
sensation and motion, are performed by different nerves 
having different functions. This, however, did not 
appear to be the case, as far as observation and experi- 
ment had been made ; for oh cutting the trunk of a 
nerve, a limb was found to be deprived of both feeling 
and motion Still, such was the force of the induc- 
tive principle which he had established relative to 
the nerves of the head, that he conjectured that what 
appeared to be one neive, might in reality be a bundle 
of nerves tied and packed together for convenience of 
distribution. And on further investigation, he dis- 
covered that these apparently single nerves did really 
run into the spinal marrow by two roots, one originat- 
ing in the anterior, the other in the posterior column. 
He then proceeded to experiment upon the important 
fact thus discovered. He laid bare the spine of an ass, 
and on irritating the anterior root, the muscles sup- 
plied by the nerve were convulsed, while a touch of 
the posterior root made the animal wince, as from pain. 
But though this was strong proof that motion be- 
longed to the anterior root, and sensation to the pos- 
terior, still it was not conclusive; as it could not be 
determined with certainty, whether the pain indicated 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 25 

by the animal when the nerve was irritated, did not 
result from wounding the raw surface. In pursuing 
his investigations, he observed that the nerve to which 
he had ascribed sensation, throughout the whole course 
of the spine, had a ganglion or bulge on its roots, and 
that the nerve to which motion had been ascribed, had 
none. This difference in structure, which in itself is 
some evidence of difference in function, became a 
salient point to a certain proof, that there is a differ- 
ence in the functions of the two sets of nerves. For, 
upon further investigation, he discovered a nerve of 
the head which arose from two roots, on one of which 
there was a ganglion, but none on the other; and that 
these nerves instead of being; bound together in one 
sheath, as is the case with the spinal nerves, run sepa- 
rate, and also instead of being covered with much 
flesh, come to the very surface of the face. Inferring, 
therefore, with that sagacity which can interpret every 
intelligible indication, that these nerves w T ere specially 
designed to give sensation and motion to the head, he, 
by a slight puncture of the root, ascertained that the 
nerve with the ganglion on it was a nerve of sensation. 
And thus the strongest proof w T as adduced, that the 
nerves of the posterior column of the spine analagous 
to this one in structure, were so in function, as had 
been supposed; for this nerve being separate from any 
other, and lying at the very surface, could be punc- 
tured without wounding a raw surface, and still it 
exhibited indications of a function analagous to that 
which had been ascribed to those analagous to it in 
structure. And thus the fact that the two great 
- 3 



26 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

nervous functions of the body, sensation and motion, 
are performed by two different sets of nerves having 
different endowments, was discovered. 

Modern medicine also may be said to have arisen 
in England- Sydenham, who had maturely studied 
Bacon's writings, laid the foundation of the science of 
medicine by pointing out, both by precept and exam- 
ple, the true method of observing the symptoms of 
disease, and of applying curative means according to 
the natural indications. Since his time, medicine has, 
by the aid of its auxiliary sciences, made rapid pro- 
gress : but still his works are of much value, even 
yet, on account of their profound general views. And 
John Hunter may be said to have originated the 
science of comparative anatomy and physiology, by 
bringing experiment into the study of these branches 
of knowledge, thereby showing how to lay open the 
great mysteries of the human organization. Surgical 
and medical pathology, which before his time were 
entirely conjectural, assumed from his principles a 
more positive character. But to a disciple of Hunter, 
belongs the most important as well as the most extra- 
ordinary discovery ever made in medcine. From the 
fact that small-pox, like some few other diseases, can- 
not, as a general fact, afflict the same subject but once, 
the practice of inoculation had been introduced ; as 
the inoculated disease, on account of the healthful 
condition of the patient when the virus is introduced 
into his system, and the treatment to which he can be 
subjected by way of preparation, was found less viru- 
lent than the disease taken in the natural way, and yet 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 27 

retained its power to protect from a second attack. 
Though this was true, still thousands died of the 
inoculated disease ; and many contracted the disease 
from the inoculated patients; and thus was ever kept 
open new sources of the dreadful malady. Yet so 
awful was the natural disease, that inoculation though 
so terrible an expedient, was justly considered a valu- 
able remedy. 

In this state of medical science relative to this 
disease, Dr. Jenner of England, having when a youth, 
heard a country girl remark, that she was not afraid of 
smallpox, for she had had the cow-pox, caught at the 
idea, and continued to enquire and reflect about it, 
year after year, until he evolved the important doc- 
trine of vaccination. With that inductive sagacity 
which seizes upon those analogies between dissimilar 
things that are the clews by which the labyrinths of 
nature's secrets are to be explored, he conceived the 
bold idea of introducing the disease of a beast into the 
human frame, as a means of preventing a worse dis- 
ease natural to man. From a careful examination of 
facts suggested by the remark of the country girl he 
had been led to believe, that cow-pox, when taken by 
milk-maids from the udders of cows, will prevent the 
small-pox. He therefore conjectured that it might 
advantageously supersede the inoculated small-pox, as - 
it was a perfectly harmless disease even when taken 
in the natural way, and would, he supposed from an- 
alogy to the small-pox, be still milder when taken by 
inoculation, and yet like inoculated small-pox, would 
retain its preventive power. Experiment was therefore 



28 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

made. On the fourteenth day of May, 1796, he inoc- 
ulated a boy in the arm, with vaccine virus taken from 
a pustule on the hand of a young woman who had 
been infected by her master's cows. The disease took 
effect. On the first of the succeeding July he inocu- 
lated the boy with small-pox virus, and as he had 
predicted, without the least effect. And thus was 
made a discovery which has saved the lives of millions 
of the human race; and has rescued youth and beauty 
from the loathsome embraces of a disease, which even 
when it spares the life of its victim, leaves upon him 
forever the indelible marks of its malignity. We 
delight to record such triumphs of science over human 
woe, and to listen to the joy of the great discoverer in 
announcing his success to the w 7 orld. " While the vac- 
cine discovery (says Jenner) was progressive, the joy 
I felt at the prospect before me, of being the instru- 
ment destined to take away from the world one of its 
greatest calamities, blended with the hope of enjoying 
independence and domestic peace and happiness, was 
often so excessive, that in pursuing my favorite subject 
among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself 
in a revery. It is pleasant to me to recollect, that 
these reflections always ended in devout acknowledg- 
ments to that being from whom this and all other 
mercies flow." 

Another triumph of science over human woe is the 
relief of pain by etherisation. Pain is not only pro- 
duced by injuries and by disease, but women, in giving 
birth to children, suffer excruciating agony. Pain 
being thus the one great evil of man's physical con- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 29 

dition, those who devoted themselves to the healing 
art, discovered, at a very early period, that various 
substances have the power to produce insensibility ; 
and these were employed to blunt the sense of pain 
during the performance of surgical operations. With 
the truth once ascertained, that certain substances can 
mitigate pain without detriment to the patient, it 
became a scientific anticipation, that some great specific 
would be discovered with a potent charm to lull par- 
oxisms of pain. And as the birth of children gives 
so much pain to mothers, the mind of the physician 
naturally hoped for some Lethean draft for labor- 
pains. As early in this century as the year 1803, Dr. 
Rush, of Philadelphia, saw a woman give birth to a 
child unconsciously during an epileptic fit. This led 
him to express" the hope that a medicine would be 
discovered that should suspend sensibility altogether 
and leave irritability, or the power of motion unim- 
paired, and thereby destroy labor-pains altogether/' 

With the knowledge, that certain substances possess 
anaesthetic properties, and with the ascertained fact, 
that some of these substances would produce their 
anaesthetic effect when inhaled through the nostrils, it 
w r as only left to experiment, to ascertain some anaes- 
thetic agent which would fulfil the conditions required 
by medical practice in the various cases which call for 
it. Science was thus on the very threshold of the dis- 
covery, when on the 30th day of September, 1846, 
Dr. Morton, a dentist of Boston, applied to Dr. 
Jackson, a chemist of the same place, for the loan of 
an India rubber bag, for the purpose, as he said, of 
. 3* 



30 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

calming a refractory patient, by causing her to believe 
that she inhaled from it something to assuage pain. 
Dr. Jackson advised him, that instead of playing on 
the imagination of the patient, he should use sul- 
phuric ether by getting the patient to inhale it. 
On the evening of the same day, Dr. Morton admin- 
istered the ether to a Mr. Frost who was suffering 
with a violent toothache. In the language of Mr. 
Frost, "Dr. Morton took out his pocket handkerchief, 
saturated it with a preparation of his, from which I 
breathed for about half a minute, and then was lost in 
sleep. In an instant more, I awoke and saw my tooth 
lying on the floor. I did not experience the slightest 
pain whatever." From this experiment, ether and 
chloroform are now used as anaesthetics in surgery, in 
midwifery and all cases of severe pain. So that pa- 
tients who once suffered agonies of pain, now, by the 
aid of the fruits of the Baconian philosophy, sleep in 
sweet slumbers or revel in the beatitudes of dreams. 

In Chemistry too, the greatest discoveries have been 
made in England. The laws of chemical combina- 
tion, which are of so much practical as well as scientific 
utility, were discovered by Dalton. But in showing 
what England has done for Chemistry, we must not 
give too much prominence even to this grand dis- 
covery, though it extends over the whole domain of 
chemical investigation, and lies at the very foundation 
of the science. For not only have other brilliant dis- 
coveries in chemistry been made in England, but, 
indeed, modern chemistry may be said to have origi- 
nated there, or rather in the British isle. In 1752, 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 31 

Dr. Black, of Edinburg, in experimenting with the 
alkalies and alkaline earths discovered, that causticity, 
(which had been commonly believed to be acquired by 
lime from the fire in the process of calcination, which 
is then called quick-lirae, and that all other alkaline 
substances derived it from the quick-lime, as they with 
the exception of magnesia can only be rendered caustic 
by being treated with it) is in reality owing to the loss 
of an seriform substance with which they had been 
combined, and that they become mild again by a re- 
union with that substance. This aeriform substance, 
or gas, which is now called carbonic acid, Black called 
fixed air, to denote that it is found fixed in bodies as 
well as in a separate elastic state. He discovered that 
this fixed air is separated from alkalies and alkaline 
earths by heat, or by acids which have a greater affinity 
for them than the fixed air has. He also discovered 
that the very same elastic substance was produced by 
the fermentation of vegetable bodies, also by the com- 
bustion of charcoal, and that it is also evolved in the 
breathing of animals. 

The importance of this discovery consists in the fact 
that contrary to the universal belief, it was thereby 
discovered that atmospheric air is not the only perma- 
nently elastic body, but that there are others which 
though transparent and invisible like atmospheric air, 
yet possess very different qualities, are capable of 
loosing their elasticity by entering into chemical com- 
bination with either solids or liquids, and of regaining 
their elastic state on being separated from them. What 
a new view of things, must the discovery thus made, 



32 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 



that the solid marble is nothing but dust bound to- 
gether by an invisible gas, have given ! What a wide 
field of investigation did this strange insight into 
nature, open before the philosopher ! 

And Black made another discovery quite as remarka- 
ble as this. About the year 1763, from the fact ascer- 
tained by him, that when heat converts a solid into a 
liquid, as when ice is reduced to water, by putting it 
into its own weight of hot water, or a liquid is con- 
verted into a vapor, the liquid or vapor resulting is no 
hotter than the solid or liquid from which they are 
produced, though in the process a great amount of heat 
has actually entered into the substances; and from the 
fact, that when the water freezes or the vapor condenses 
an unexpected amount of heat is given out, he drew 
the inference, that the quantity of heat which could 
not be indicated by the thermometer, remained latent 
in the body. For, in converting water into ice, as 
much as one hundred and forty degrees of heat are 
expended, and yet the water will be as cold as the 
ice — the thermometer will stand at thirty-two (freezing 
point) instead, as might be expected, at one hundred 
and seventy-two. And thus was revealed the myste- 
rious doctrine of latent heat. 

This discovery and that of fixed air are auxiliary to 
the illustration of each other, and are the basis, or at 
all events, the chief salient points of modern chemistry. 
As it was now ascertained that there are other perma- 
nently elastic bodies besides atmospheric air, and as it 
appeared to be a fundamental fact in nature, chemical 
investigation necessarily took the direction which it 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 33 

indicated as the way to important truths; and a mere 
talent for experiment might now proceed with the most 
brilliant success in a path, which none but the highest 
genius for inductive research could have laid open to 
the inquirer. And such was the course of chemical 
enquiry. All chemists at once entered upon the field 
of pneumatic chemistry which Black had laid open. 
Dr. Priestly, in 1774, discovered oxygen gas by expos- 
ing red lead, in a close vessel, to the sun's rays concen- 
trated by a burning glass, when a permanently elastic 
aeriform body was evolved, which had the property of 
greatly increasing the intensity of flame. At a later 
period he discovered the important fact that the absorp- 
tion of this gas in the act of respiration gives its red 
color to the arterial blood ; and he also found that 
when plants grow in close vessels, and restore the 
purity of the air in which a candle has been burnt or 
an animal breathed, a fact which he had before discov- 
ered, they do so by evolving this gas. He also dis- 
covered nitrogen gas about the same time that Dr. 
Rutherford, of Edinburgh, did, by the fact that if air 
is exposed to sulphur and iron filings, its bulk is 
diminished, and the residue is lighter than common 
air and unfit for respiration, which residue is nitrogen. 
And Watt and Cavendish, who had entered upon this 
new field of investigation, discovered some of its most 
important truths. The composition of water, the 
knowledge of which is an element in so many chem- 
ical reasonings as to make it one of the most prolific 
of chemical discoveries, was discovered by Watt and 
verified by Cavendish, who. burnt oxygen and hydro- 



34: THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

gen in a dry glass vessel, when a quantity of pure 
water was generated equal in weight to that of the 
gases which had disappeared in the formation of water, 
a proof incontestable that the water was formed of the 
two gases which had disappeared. Cavendish showed 
also the first example of weighing permanently elastic 
bodies, and thus gained an important control over these 
evanescent substances. He also discovered that nitrous 
acid is composed of the two gases deprived of latent 
heat, which compose our atmosphere, oxygen and 
nitrogen. 

But it was the glory of another Englishman to make 
the most brilliant discoveries which have yet adorned 
the history of chemistry. Sir H. Davy, with an expe- 
rimental skill and a daring intrepidity which have 
never been excelled, entered at this stage of the science 
into the field of chemical inquiry which his country- 
men were exploring with such extraordinary success. 
And as if it were specially designed to be wielded by 
his giant arm, in the noble conquests of science, Volta 
had just invented the pile which bears his name. Im- 
mediately after its invention it was sent to England, 
and Nicholson and Carlisle discovered that water could 
be decomposed by its action. They plunged two pla- 
tinum wires, connected with the opposite poles of the 
battery, into the same cup of water, without their 
touching each other, when hydrogen gas was disen- 
gaged at the negative wire, and oxygen at the positive, 
each passing off in bubbles, which when collected in 
separate tubes were found to be pure, and in the exact 
proportion of which water consists. With this won- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 35 

derful fact before him, Sir H. Davy exposed other 
compound bodies, such as acids and salts, to the action 
of the battery, and all without exception were decom- 
posed, one of their elements appearing at one side of 
the battery and the other at the opposite extremity. 
And he found that there was a uniformity in these 
decompositions. That their law was, that the acids 
and oxygen and all bodies of a like kind are trans- 
ferred to and accumulate around the positive pole, 
while hydrogen, metals, alkalies and such like bodies 
are transferred to the negative pole ; and he discovered 
that these transfers will take place through considera- 
ble spaces, and that acids would pass through vessels 
containing alkaline solutions, and alkalies, through 
vessels filled with liquids containing free acids, with- 
out the least combination, and appear at their respec- 
tive poles with their peculiar properties. Sir H. Davy, 
observing the analogy between these phenomena and 
the attractions and repulsions effected by ordinary elec- 
tricity, inferred that chemical attraction is an electric 
force, and that the reason why any substance, as w T ater 
for instance, is decomposed by a battery, is that one 
end of the wire has a greater affinity on account of its 
intense electrical condition for oxygen and the other 
for hydrogen than these elements have for each other. 
Guided by this view of the nature of chemical attrac- 
tion, he inferred that any compound substance what- 
ever might be decomposed by a battery of sufficient 
power, by subverting the chemical affinity of its ele- 
ments in presenting to it a wire of such intense electri- 
cal condition as to attract its elements with more force 



36 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

than they attract each other. Directing his experiments 
accordingly, he succeeded in decomposing the alkalies 
and alkaline earths, showing that they are composed of 
oxygen and an inflammable metal ; the oxygen accumu- 
lating at the positive pole and the metal at the negative, 
thus bringing to light entirely new substances in these 
inflamable metals, and rendering still more probable, 
by the decomposition, the correctness of his view of 
the nature of chemical attraction. 

What a grand step was this from the simple dis- 
covery of Black, that an elastic fluid is sometimes 
found fixed in a solid, as carbonic acid in limestone! 
For here the lime which Black considered an element 
and which had revolved as an element at the points of 
other batteries, is now shown to be composed of an 
inflamable metal, and a gas which is one of the ele- 
ments of the very gas which Black had discovered to 
be the ligature which binds limestone together. And 
thus the path of inquiry which Black opened had led 
to such rich discoveries. 

But the career of discovery does not end here. The 
field of chemical research, which had been laid open 
by Black, had been so successfully explored that Sir 
Humphrey Davy was enabled to lay the foundations 
of agricultural chemistry, upon the truths which had 
been discovered, and thereby elevate the culture of the 
soil from the most empirical drudgery to a scientific art. 

It had been ascertained that vegetables are composed 
of the four simple gases, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen 
and Oxygen, which the disciples of Black had discov- 
ered, and a minute quantity of inorganic matter. The 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 37 

question then occurred, whence do plants obtain these 
elements? And it is at once seen that they must 
obtain them either from the atmosphere or the earth ; 
or from both. It had long been known that marine 
plants, reaching the enormous height of three hundred 
and sixty feet, and which nourish thousands of marine 
animals, grow upon the naked rocks. But as the 
surfaces of these rocks undergo no change, it was 
obvious that the plants did not draw their nourish- 
ment through their roots from them. They must then 
derive it, through their leaves, from the sea-water in 
which they float, spread out in their enormous ramifi- 
cations, so that every part of the plant is presented to 
the surface of the water. This is made clear by the 
fact that sea-water is found, by analysis, to contain all 
the constituents, carbonic acid, ammonia and the alka- 
line and the earthy phosphates and carbonates required 
by these plants for their growth, and which are found 
to be the constituents of their ashes. It is therefore 
seen that these plants may derive all their nourishment 
through their leaves. But do terrestrial plants derive 
all their nourishment through their leaves? This can- 
not be so, because the only medium from which these 
plants can derive nourishment through their leaves and 
bark is the atmosphere, and it does not contain, like 
sea-water, all the elements of plants. Its constituents 
are oxygen, nitrogen, together with watery vapor, car- 
bonic acid and ammonia. And these are not all the 
constituents of plants — the inorganic matter being 
wanting. Terrestrial plants must, therefore, derive 
some nourishment at least from the soil. For though 



38 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the earth is a magazine of organic matter as well as 
inorganic, yet as plants are found to flourish upon soils 
where the quantity of carbon and nitrogen contained 
in them cannot have been in the soil, as well as from 
many other facts, the conclusion is irresistible, that 
terrestrial plants derive their nourishment from the 
atmosphere as well as the soil. 

Thus is opened the whole field of agricultural chem- 
istry. For it is obvious, that if plants are composed 
of certain elements, some of which are derived from 
the soil, and others from the atmosphere, it is necessary 
that the soil and the atmosphere should each contain 
the elements proper to it, as food to the plants. For 
otherwise, the plants must be, as it were, starved to 
death. And as it is certain, that the atmosphere has 
not changed since the earliest period at which an accu- 
rate analysis of it has been made, we may conclude, as 
we know how its equilibrium is kept up, that it will 
always contain those elements of plants which it is its 
province in the economy of nature, to furnish to vege- 
tation. But this is not the case with the soil; for by 
a succession of crops, all the elements necessary for the 
growth of plants may be removed from the soil, and 
then the plants cannot grow from want of food. It is 
seen then how important it is to know what elements 
of plants are furnished by the soil, and what by the 
atmosphere. For otherwise, we might, at a great ex- 
penditure of labor and capital be endeavoring to fur- 
nish to the soil, the elements which the plants derive 
from the atmosphere ; whereas all that is necessary, is 
to furnish those to the soil which it gives to the plant. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 39 

And as chemistry informs us of the nature of manures, 
what elements each kind contains, we are enabled to 
put on the soil, the precise kind it wants; and thus 
make an economical expenditure of labor and capital, 
and also, direct our means with certain success. By 
such a course of reasoning did Sir H. Davy lay the 
foundation of agricultural chemistry; though some 
facts here exhibited have been discovered since his 
time. 

The first inductive generalization ever made in elec- 
tricity, was made by Gray and Wheeler of England, 
who discovered that some substances are conductors 
and others non-conductors. And the great truth that 
the lightning of Heaven is identical with electricity 
was discovered by one speaking the English as his 
vernacular language. Franklin, by the beautifully 
simple apparatus of a kite having a key attached to 
the lower end of a hempen cord, and being insulated 
by means of a silken thread, by which it was fastened 
to a post, demonstrated that the electric fluid and 
lightning are identical. The kite was raised while a 
heavy cloud was passing over, and after some time, the 
loose fibres of the hempen cord began to bristle. 
Franklin touched the key with his knuckle, and the 
electric spark was received, and thereby the identity of 
electricity and lightning was verified. 

The fundamental truth of optics was also discovered 
in England. Newton discovered that a beam of light, 
as emitted from the sun, consists of seven rays of 
different colors possessing different degrees of refrangi- 
bility. This great discovery was made by darkening 



40 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

a room and boring a hole in the window shutter, and 
letting a convenient quantity of the sun's light pass 
through a prism. The light was so refracted by its 
passage through the prism, as to exhibit all the differ- 
ent colors on the wall, forming an image about five 
times as long as it was broad; instead of forming a 
circular image, according to the received laws of refrac- 
tion at that time, and of a white color, according to 
the nature of light as then understood. In order to 
ascertain the true causes of the elongation and colors 
of the image, Newton then placed a board with a small 
hole in it, behind the face of the prism and close to it, 
so that he could transmit through the hole any one of 
the colors, and keep back all the rest. For example, 
he first let the red light pass through and fall on the 
wall. He then placed another board, with a hole in it, 
near the wall where the red ray fell, so as to lee it pass 
through the hole in the second board, and then he 
placed a prism behind this board, and let the red light 
pass through it near the wall. He then turned round 
the first prism so as to let all the colors pass in succes- 
sion these two holes, and he marked their places on the 
wall, and he saw by their places, that the red rays were 
less refracted by the second prism, than the orange, the 
orange less than the yellow, and so on, all being less 
refracted than the violet. From this experiment, 
Newton drew the grand conclusion that light is not 
homogenous, but is composed of rays of different 
colors and of different degrees of refrangibility. 

And the greatest of all human discoveries, the uni- 
versality of the law of gravity, the foundation of 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 41 

physical astronomy, was discovered in England. Co- 
pernicus had discovered the motion of the earth on its 
axis around the sun ; Kepler, that this motion around 
the sun, is in an elliptical orbit, with the sun in one of 
its foci ; and that an imaginary line drawn from the 
planet in its revolution, to the sun, describes equal areas 
in equal times; and that the square of the time that 
the planet takes in moving around the sun is equal to 
the cube of its distance from that body. This is the 
starting-point where the discoveries of the English 
begin. It remained to inquire into the causes of these 
general facts which had been discovered by Copernicus 
and Kepler. 

In the year 1666, Newton, while sitting alone in his 
garden and reflecting upon the nature of gravity which 
causes all bodies to descend towards the centre of the 
earth, considering that this power suffers no sensible 
diminution at the greatest distances from the centre of 
the earth to which we can reach, being as great on the 
summits of the highest mountains as at the bottom of 
the deepest mines, conjectured that perhaps it extended 
further than was commonly supposed. He therefore 
began to consider what would be its effects if it ex- 
tended to the moon. That the motion of the moon 
was affected by this power, he conceived to be beyond 
a doubt; and further reflection led him to suppose that 
this body might by this power be held in its orbit 
around the earth. For, though gravity suffered no 
sensible diminution at the comparatively small dis- 
tances from the centre of the earth to which we can 
go, yet he thought it highly probable, that it was 
4* 



42 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

greatly diminished at the distance of the moon, and 
that therefore it did not cause that body to fall to the 
earth. And he inferred, that if the moon be held in 
its orbit by the principle of gravity, that the planets 
also must be held in their orbits by the same power; 
and that by comparing the periods of the different 
planets with their distances from the sun, he might 
ascertain in what proportion the power by w 7 hich they 
were held in their orbits decreased. By this process 
he arrived at the conclusion that it decreased in the 
duplicate proportion, or as the square of their distances 
from the sun. In order then to test the truth of the 
conclusion, that the law of the force by which the 
planets are drawn to the sun was that it decreased as 
the square of their distances from that luminary, he 
endeavored to ascertain if such a force emanating from 
the earth and directed to the moon was sufficient to 
retain her in her orbit. To do this, it was necessary 
to compare the space through which heavy bodies fall 
in a given time to a given distance from the centre of 
the earth, viz : to its surface, with the space through 
which the moon, as it were, falls to the earth in the 
same time, while revolving in a circular orbit; for in 
all his reasonings, he supposed the planets to move in 
orbits perfectly circular. At the time Newton made 
this calculation, he adopted the common estimate of the 
diameter of the earth, as then used by geographers and 
navigators, which was erroneous. Therefore his con- 
clusions were erroneous also. Some years afterwards, 
the discovery that a projectile would move in an ellip- 
tical orbit, when acted upon by a force varying in the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 43 

inverse ratio of the square of the distance, led Newton 
to demonstrate that a planet acted upon by an attrac- 
tive force varying inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance, will describe an elliptical orbit in one of whose 
foci the attractive force resides. But though Newton 
had thus established an hypothesis which explained the 
elliptical orbits of the planets, and this hypothesis was 
founded upon an induction of facts made by Kepler, 
and demonstrated by the application of mathematics 
by himself, yet an indispensable condition of the induc- 
tion had not been fulfilled. He had not yet obtained 
any evidence that a force varying inversely as the 
square of the distance, did actually reside in the sun 
and planets; because his calculations for testing this, 
founded upon the comparison of the space through 
which heavy bodies fall in a second of time to a given 
distance from the centre of the earth, with the space 
through which the moon, as it w 7 ere falls to the earth, 
in a second of time while revolving in a circular orbit, 
assumed an erroneous estimate of the diameter of the 
earth, as we have shown, and consequently did not 
test what it was intended to verify ; but showed that 
the force which retains the moon in its orbit as de- 
ducted from the force which causes the fall of heavy 
bodies to the earth is, as one-sixth greater than that 
which is actually indicated in her circular orbit. But 
M. Picard having, in 1679, executed the measure- 
ment of a degree of the meridian, Newton afterwards 
deduced from it the true diameter of the earth, and 
trying his former calculation, he realized his expecta- 
tions ; and found the force of gravity which regulates 



44 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the fall of bodies at the earth's surface, when dimin- 
ished as the square of the distance of the moon from 
the earth, to be nearly equal to the centrifugal force 
of the moon as deduced from her observed distance 
and velocity; and he thus fulfilled the fundamental 
condition of the inductive method of investigation, of 
always ascribing a cause known to exist, to explain an 
effect. By this course of reasoning Newton connected 
the physics of the earth with the physics of the heavens, 
and established the universality of the law of gravita- 
tion. 

What more delightful employment can the specu- 
lative philosopher have than the contemplation of the 
grand discoveries which we have been considering ! 
To one who loves truth for its own sake, and feels 
delight in the mere contemplation of harmonious and 
mutually dependent truths, the knowledge of such 
great truths is of sufficient value to repay him for the 
labor of discovery, even if they did not admit of any 
practical application. To know what it is that paints 
the beautiful colors of the rainbow, and covers the hills 
and valleys in green, and gives the delicate tints to 
the flowers which picture the fields; to know that the 
scathing lightnings which rush with such tremendous 
fury from the vast magazines of the heavens, is the 
same with the spark rubbed from the cat's back; to 
know that the water which we drink, and which 
appears so simple, is composed of two gases, one of 
which is more combustible than gunpowder, and pro- 
duces instant death when inhaled, and the other is the 
supporter of combustion, though the two united is the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 45 

chief agent by which we extinguish fire; to know that 
the planets of such vast magnitude, and moving with 
such velocity through such boundless space, are held 
in their orbits by the same force which causes an apple 
to fall to the ground; to know the times of eclipses 
and the returns of comets dashing with a velocity 
quicker than thought over millions of miles of space 
and returning with unerring certainty to the goal 
whence they set out: and all other wonders which 
natural philosophy reveals, must, forever, as mere 
matters of intellectual contemplation, be considered as 
inestimable treasures. And the mere process of inves- 
tigation, according to the Baconian method, is one of 
the noblest and most delightful employments. The 
philosopher, at almost every stage of his progress, is 
meeting with hints of greater things still undiscov- 
ered, which cheers the mind, amidst its toil, with the 
hope of making still further progress; and new fields 
of disoovery are continually opening in prospect and 
the light of his present discoveries throwing enough of 
their rays across the darkness before him to reveal as 
much of other new truths as will stimulate him to 
continued exertion for their discovery : thus curiosity 
is ever kept alive and exhausted energies renovated in 
the laborious pursuits of knowledge. 

How utterly insignificant, as mere matters of intel- 
lectual contemplation, is all the physical philosophy of 
the ancients in comparison with these magnificent dis- 
coveries in the different sciences ! And what can form 
a more striking contrast than the sublime argumenta- 
tion of Newton and the petty sophistry of the philoso- 



46 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

phers of the middle age ! What are the eloquent 
reveries of Plato and the ingenious reasonings of Aris- 
totle in comparison with the mighty mensuration by 
which, Newton beginning with the dust on the balance, 
measures the earth, and, rising in the sublime argu- 
ment, measures planet after planet and weighing them, 
balances one against the other, and not content with 
holding, as it were, worlds in the hollow of his hand, 
he measures and weighs systems of worlds; and his 
mighty calculus still not exhausted, he balances sys- 
tems of worlds against systems of worlds, and embraces 
in his argument the infinitude of the universe until the 
words of the sacred poet, " he weighed the mountains 
in the scales and the hills in a balance," intended to 
describe the omnipotence of the deity, fall short in 
describing the power of one of his creatures. The 
wisdom of the Academy and the Lyceum have been 
overshadowed by the glory of Cambridge, and Greece 
yields to England in philosophical renown ! 

We see, then, that as a mere matter of intellectual 
contemplation to satisfy the speculative mind, the Ba- 
conian philosophy is preeminently sublime. We will 
now show that it is also eminently practical ; and in 
this particular it differs from all the philosophies of 
the ancients who thought that the only use of philoso- 
phy was in its influence upon the mind in elevating it 
above the concerns of life, and thus purifying and 
preparing it for the philosophical beatitude of their 
heaven, into which none but philosophers were to 
enter; and that the practical affairs of life belonged 
to those of common endowments who are fated by 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 47 

destiny to be mere " hewers of wood and drawers of 
water." But far different is the spirit of the Baconian 
philosophy. Humbling itself before Christianity, it 
acknowledges it to be a revelation from heaven, point- 
ing out the same way to future bliss for the peasant 
and the philosopher, and that it only has the power 
" to deliver man from the bondage of corruption into 
the glorious liberty of the sons of God;" and that 
though philosophy enlarges and elevates the mind and 
affords us unspeakable intellectual pleasure, yet that 
its chief office is to promote the general well-being of 
man in this life by connecting the sciences with the 
arts and arming them with a power which mere 
empiricism can never attain. 

It is then the great excellence of the Baconian phi- 
losophy, that even those of its discoveries which have 
contributed most to the satisfaction of the speculative 
intellect and are apparently the most remote from 
everything like practical application to the comforts of 
man, have frequently been applied to the most useful 
purposes of life. The discovery of the nature of light 
by Newton at once led him to attempt a practical 
application of it, and though nothing of importance 
resulted from his labors, yet Hall, and afterwards Dol- 
land, constructed achromatic telescopes, which could 
never have been done, if the fact of the different 
refrangibility of the different rays of light had not 
been known; and this discovery was thus applied to 
the arts in accordance with the utilitarian spirit of the 
Baconian philosophy. Scarcely had Franklin discov- 
ered the nature of lightning before he constructed an 



48 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

apparatus to protect our buildings on land and our 
ships on the sea from the ravages of the electric fluid. 
And thus by a discovery apparently so remote from 
all practical utility, he disarmed the spirit of the storm 
of his thunders and thereby showed to the world that 
knowledge is power. But the most fruitful practical 
applications have been made of Chemistry. It has 
been applied to agriculture, to medicine, and to the 
mechanical arts. By applying the principles which 
we have exhibited to the improvement of agriculture, 
it has made the most sterile waste so fertile as to yield 
all the various fruits of the earth in the richest abund- 
ance. Where not a blade of grass grew, now the most 
abundant harvests gladden the sight, as they spread 
out ill ocean waves over the fields where chemistry has 
shed its fertilizing dews. And by its magic power, 
chemistry has released the various medical agents 
which lie embedded in the innumerable vegetable and 
mineral products of nature, and handed them over to 
the healing art, to aid the vital powers in throwing off 
from the body the many diseases which prey upon 
man. And its application to the mechanic arts has 
bestowed the richest blessings upon man. Sir H. 
Davy applied its principles in the construction of the 
safety lamp, by which man is enabled to walk with 
comparative safety in the bottoms of dark mines, with 
a light, amidst a gas more explosive than gunpowder, 
where, without this lamp, the miner is frequently 
exposed to as much danger as though he were walking 
in a magazine of powder with a lighted torch; and 
thus thousands of lives and millions of money are 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 49 

saved by this one application of science to art. But 
the crowning invention of all, the one which consti- 
tutes the chief glory of science in its application to 
art, is the steam engine. A profound chemical know- 
ledge, applied by the most exquisite mechanical skill, 
enabled James Watt to bring the steam engine, which 
had been invented by Savery and Newcomen, to a 
degree of perfection which renders it the most valua- 
ble of all inventions of art. It brings under the con- 
trol of man an agent more potent than a hundred 
giants, swifter than the Arabian horse, and capable of 
assuming more forms in mechanism than a Proteus, so 
as to apply itself to all kinds of work. It can pull a 
hundred wagons as easily as one — perform one kind of 
labor as easily as another. It is on the ocean, it is on 
the rivers, it is on the mountains, it is in the valleys, 
it is at the bottom of mines, it is in the shops, it is 
everywhere at work. It propels the ship, it rows the 
boat, it cuts, it pumps, it hammers, it cards, it spins, 
it weaves, it washes, it cooks, it prints, and releases 
man of nearly all bodily toil. This mighty agent is 
revolutionizing the world — annihilating time and space 
by its speed, and bringing the most remote parts of the 
earth together. And all this mighty power is gained 
by a scientific knowledge of the nature of the atmos- 
phere which we breathe, and the water which we drink, 
and applying this knowledge to mechanism, so as to 
make these so familiar objects work for man. 

Another marvellous product of the Baconian phi- 
losophy, in the application of science to the arts of 
life, is the electrical telegraph. It must not be sup- 
5 



50 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

posed that men of science investigate the secrets of 
nature with a view to any other utility than the pure 
joy which the discovery of new truths imparts to the 
mind. Suggestions of the application of scientific 
truths to the conveniences of life are always an after- 
thought. It was the discovery of new truths and not 
the application of electrical science to telegraphing 
that the original inquirers into electrical phenomena 
had in view. Prior to the year 1819 not one step had 
been taken towards the development of the scientific 
conditions of the possibility of an electrical telegraph. 
During the winter of that year, and of the year 1820, 
Oersted of Copenhagen discovered that a wire being 
placed close above, or below, and parallel to a mag- 
netic needle, and a galvanic current being transmitted 
through the wire, the needle will tend to place itself at 
right angles to it. This discovery was received by the 
scientific world with the interest which a new truth 
always inspires. The next fact in the same line of 
investigation that was discovered, was that during the 
transmission of a galvanic current through a wire of 
copper, or any other metal, the wire exhibits magnetic 
properties attracting iron, but net coppei filings, and 
having the power of inducing permanent magnetism 
in steel needles. This discovery was made independ- 
ently, and about the same time, by Arago, at Paris, 
and Davy, at London. Ampere of Paris next discov- 
ered that two parallel wires, through which galvanic 
currents are passing in the same direction, attract each 
other, but if the currents pass in opposite directions, 
they repel each other. From this fact Ampere formed 
the theory that all the phenomena of magnetism and 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 51 

electro-magnetism may be referred to the action, by 
attraction and repulsion, of electrical currents on each 
other supposed to exist in the iron at right angles to 
the length of the bar. After this discovery, Ampere 
proposed to the French Academy a plan for the appli- 
cation of electro-magnetism to the transmission of intel- 
ligence to a distance by a mechanical contrivance which 
he suggested. His project was never reduced to prac- 
tice. These discoveries and suggestions of Ampere 
were made prior to the year 1823. 

The idea of an electrical telegraph being now sug- 
gested in the progress of science, Barlow, of the Royal 
Military Academy of Woolwich, England, in 1825, 
published his investigations relating to the subject. 
He had found, by experiment, that there was so great 
a diminution in the power of the galvanic current to 
produce effects at a distance, as to convince him of the 
impracticability of an electro-magnetic telegraph. This 
publication, for a time, put to rest all attempts to con- 
struct an electro-magnetic telegraph. 

In 1825 Sturgeon, of England, published an account 
of his experiment of bending a piece of iron wire into 
the form of a horse-shoe and putting loosely around it 
a coil of copper wire, with wide intervals between the 
turns or spires, to prevent them from touching each 
other, and through this coil transmitting a current of 
galvanism. The iron, under the influence of this cur- 
rent, became magnetic, and thus was produced the first 
electro-magnet. 

At this stage of science and of experiment pertain- 
ing to the electrical telegraph, Joseph Henry, the now 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a scientist of 



52 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

surpassing forecast and experimental ingenuity and 
tact as an original discoverer, begun his investigations 
in electro-magnetism with a view solely to science. 

After repeating the experiments of Oersted, Ampere 
and others, and publishing an account in the year 1828 
of various modifications of electro-magnetic apparatus, 
Henry commenced, in that year, the investigation of 
the laws of the development of magnetism in soft iron 
by means of the electrical current. The first idea 
which occurred to him, in accordance with the theory 
of Ampere just mentioned, with reference to increasing 
the power of the magnet, was that of using a longer 
wire than had been employed. A wire of sixty feet in 
length, covered with silk, was, therefore, wound round 
a whole length of an iron bar, either straight or in the 
form of a U, so as to cover its whole length with seve- 
ral thicknesses of wire. It was found that such an 
electro-magnet possessed magnetic power superior to 
that of any before known. This was ascertained in 
1829. 

It afterwards occurred to Henry that the quantity of 
galvanism supplied by a small galvanic battery might 
be applied to develop a still greater amount of mag- 
netic power in a larger bar of iron. Accordingly, by 
a battery of two and a half square inches of zinc, he 
developed magnetism in a large bar sufficient to lift 
fourteen pounds. 

It next occurred to him that, by using a number of 
wires of the same length around the same bar, so as to 
lessen the resistance wlrch the galvanic current expe- 
rienced in passing from the zinc to the copper through 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 53 

the coil, the power of the magnet would be increased, 
A second wire, of equal length to the first, was, there- 
fore, wound round the last mentioned magnet, and 
its ends soldered to the plates of the same battery. 
With this additional wire the magnet lifted twenty- 
eight pounds, its power being doubled by the addi- 
tional wire. 

Henry afterwards made a series of experiments to 
determine the resistance to conduction of wires of dif- 
ferent lengths and diameters, and the proper lengths 
and number of wires producing, with different kinds 
of galvanic batteries, the maximum amount of mag- 
netic development with a given quantity of zinc sur- 
face. For this purpose, a bar of soft iron, two inches 
square and twenty inches long, weighing twenty 7 one 
pounds, and much larger than any before used, was 
bent in the form of a horse-shoe. Around this were 
wound nine strands of copper wire, each sixty feet 
long, the ends left projecting, so that one or more coils 
could be used at once, either connected with a battery 
or with each other, thus forming several coils with 
several battery connections, or one long coil with sin- 
gle battery connections. Subsequently, he constructed 
electro-magnets on the same plan with the one just 
described, one of which, now in the cabinet at Prince- 
ton, that will sustain three thousand six hundred 
pounds, with a battery occupying about a cubic foot 
of space. It consists of thirty strands of wire, each 
above forty feet in length. 

The experiments of Henry resulted in discovering 
that, with a battery consisting of a number of pairs, 
5* 



54 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

and not of a single pair which had been used before 
by experimenters, a galvanic current could be trans- 
mitted to a great distance with so little diminution of 
force as to produce mechanical effects, and also the 
means by which the transmission could be accom- 
plished. He, therefore, saw that the electrical tele- 
graph was rendered practicable through his discoveries, 
and in publishing his experiments he stated its practi- 
cability. 

After thpse discoveries and experiments of Henry, 
S. F. B. Morse, of New York, a man of little science, 
but of genius for mechanical invention and adaptation, 
constructed an electrical telegraph. Being ignorant of 
Henry's discoveries and experiments, he was unable to 
make his apparatus accomplish its purpose of convey- 
ing intelligence to a distance. When, however, he was 
informed of Henry's discoveries and experiments by 
L. D. Gale whose scientific assistance he had sought, 
and was afterwards instructed by Henry himself, he, 
by applying the discoveries of Henry to the construc- 
tion of the telegraph, succeeded in constructing an 
apparatus which, by means of iron wires conducting 
the electric fluid, conveys intelligence with the velocity 
of lightning. In the hurry of life, the post, though 
conveyed by steam, had become too slow for man. 
And lo ! science gives to art the swift power of light- 
ning to send intelligence, not only over the land, but 
under the sea, from continent to continent. 

It is important, in scientific investigations, that 
inquirers should discriminate between different classes 
of phenomena, and refer them to their respective laws. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 55 

Since the doctrine of the identity and mutual converti- 
bility of the physical forces has been received as an 
admitted truth, the natural tendency of the human 
mind to group all phenomena, possessing any sort of 
resemblance under the same category, as identical, has 
led scientists to confound the vital with the physical 
forces. This is a confusion disastrous to sound phi- 
losophy. The physiological and pathological phenom- 
ena of organization are referable to very different laws, 
from the phenomena of affinity, of caloric, of galvan- 
ism, of electricity, of magnetism, and other phenomena 
usually denominated physical. The vital force per- 
forms a very different function in the economy of 
nature from that performed by the physical forces. 
The function of the vital force is, that of creating 
organic forms, the mechanism and instruments of liv- 
ing beings. It possesses none of the attributes of the 
physical forces in its actions. But it is correlated 
with them, in its function of developing organic jstruc- 
ture, by metamorphic changes limited by typical per- 
manency. 

The process of crystallization is one of physical 
force. Atoms endowed with the simple force of attrac- 
tion in right lines mnst, of mathematical necessity, 
group themselves in geometrical figures — three form- 
ing an equflateral plane triad ; four, a solid tetrahe- 
don, and so on. This is very different from the process 
of organization, which is one of vital force. There, 
atoms spontaneously — as it were by immediate intelli- 
gence and prearrangement — group themselves in the 
form of eyes, ears, and limbs, instruments of optics, of 



56 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

accoustics, and locomotion, the organs of a being of 
intelligence and emotions, the seeming offspring of an 
intelligent creator. Here are evidences of design, by- 
intelligence working through the conditions of nature, 
the physical forces supplementing the vital force under 
the guidance of plastic power. 

Though the foregoing analysis shows that the vital 
force is so opposite to the physical forces as to be a 
separate and independent power in the processes of 
nature, and cannot be conceived, as a development of 
physical force, without violating the laws of thought, 
yet some physical iuquirers claim that all creation is 
but evolution of a potential germ or germs, something 
as near to nothing as the metaphysical notion of an 
absolute beginning, or the zero of Oken w 7 hich will be 
considered in the sequel. And it is maintained that, 
in this process of evolution, the genesis of organic 
forms is worked out from .the embryo potentiality by 
adaptive modifications produced by the action of sur- 
rounding conditions, species giving place to species, as 
the monkey advances towards omniscience, in the long 
procession of infinite parturition by what is called 
natural selection or the survival of the fitest, a doctrine 
invented " to overthrow the dogma of separate crea- 
tions." 

It should be remarked that, even if trite, the doc- 
trine of natural selection, or survival of the fitest, 
leaves the origin of things wholly unexplained. It 
posits in nature a potential germ or germs, but gives 
no account of their origin. It teaches that, because of 
peculiarities in an individual animal, it is better fitted 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 57 

to live than other individuals of the same species, and 
that with the changing external conditions of animal 
existence, this peculiarity becomes, in the descendants 
possessing it, so exaggerated or developed in the course 
of time, that a new species is formed, and so species 
after species, in endless succession, through an ascend- 
ing metempsychosis, from a monkey to a man, and 
may be, to a God, necessitated by natural law for 
which there is no law-giver. 

To predicate selection, as made by physical condi- 
tions and forces, involves self-contradiction in thought 
and absurdity in expression. And if refuge be taken 
in the survival of the fitest, all that is gained is only an 
expression that does not involve the self-contradiction 
of selection where there is no intelligent act, and the 
doctrine becomes, in this form of expression, a mere 
trueism. The preposterous thought of creation with- 
out design, fore-ordained by an intelligent creator, is 
still left as foolishness to the inductive inquirer. 

Thus far we have considered the doctrine of evolu- 
tion only as mere physical structure is involved in it. 
We will now consider it in regard to the transition 
from brute intelligence to the reason of man. It is 
far more difficult to conceive of the transitional mind 
than of the transitional form, and to verify it by facts 
within human observation. The mind of the savage 
has all the faculties of the civilized man. The stum- 
bling block is, to conceive a half human intellect — a 
being so far advanced in intellectual development as to 
cease to be a brute, but has not yet become a man. 
Such a being cannot exist in scientific thought, and, 



58 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

therefore, cannot exist in reality, and is not within the 
field of inductive inquiry. Yet such a being the evo- 
lution theory is, by its logical exigencies, necessitated 
to posit as a link in the natural gradation of the order 
of intellectual being. And the moral evolution out of 
the sensuous instincts and lusts of the brute, of the 
notion of an immortal soul, of a moral governor of 
the world, and of the pure doctrines of the sermon on 
the mount, is logically impossible to human conscious- 
ness because of the self-contradictions involved in the 
possibility of such a conception. Our moral nature 
cannot be evolved out of our physical. Remorse of 
the soul is totally different from the pain of the body, 
separating our moral from our physical constitution 
by an indestructible difference. The first cannot be 
evolved out of the other, according to inductive reason- 
ing, which founds all its conclusions on philosophical 
analogies by which similar things are identified in one- 
ness. 

The theory of evolution, if not pure atheism, cer- 
tainly reduces God to a mere spectator of the opera- 
tions of nature. In the sequel, where the Physico-Phi- 
losophy of Oken is examined, the theory of evolution, 
viewed from a rational and not an experiential stand- 
point, will appear as the great opprobrium of the 
philosophy of the absolute which once reigned in Ger- 
many, as it is now the doctrinal scandal of the sensu- 
ous philosophy of the present time. We will now 
present another process of induction. 

From the time Newton, by the discovery of the law 
of universal gravitation, brought astronomy within the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 59 

inductive philosophy, and connected the physics of the 
heavens with the physics of the earth, inductive obser- 
vation has been directed to the analogies common to 
the terrestrial and the celestial physical phenomena. 
And it seems now that these analogies may lead to the 
discovery of the physical constitution of the heavenly 
bodies. The inductive process by which these analo- 
gies are made available in ascertaining the physical 
constitution of the heavenly bodies, is called spectrum 
analysis. 

By spectrum is not meant, as its verbal meaning 
would imply, a ghostly apparition, but the image bril- 
liant with all the colors of the rainbow which is 
obtained when the light of the sun, or of any other 
brilliant object, passes through a triangular piece of 
glass called a prism. If a ray of sunshine be allowed 
to pass through a small round hole in the window- 
shutter of a darkened room, there will appear a round 
white spot of light in the exact direction of the ray, 
upon a screen placed opposite the opening. But if the 
ray of light is made to pass through a prism, the ray 
is deflected from its straight course, and, on emerging 
from the prism, no longer remains one single ray as it 
entered the window-shutter, but is separated into very 
many single-colored rays which, as they continue to 
diverge, form upon the screen an elongated band of 
brilliant colors instead of the former round white image 
of the sun. This band of all the separate colored 
rays, into which white light is analyzed by the prism, 
which is formed on the screen, is the image called the 
spectrum. 



60 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

By experiment upon terrestrial objects, it was ascer- 
tained that, to every substance, when luminous in a 
gaseous form, there corresponds a peculiar spectrum 
which belongs only to that peculiar substance. It is, 
therefore, easy to discover, from the form of the spec- 
trum which an unknown body presents, the individual 
substances of which it is composed. And this decom- 
position of bodies by means of their spectra, is spec- 
trum analysis. 

As by means of the prism, the light of the sun, the 
planets, the fixed stars, the cornets and nebulae can 
be decomposed, their spectra can be obtained in the 
same way as that of terrestrial luminous substances. 
And, by a comparison of their spectra with the well- 
known spectra of terrestrial substances, it can be deter- 
mined, from their complete agreement or disagreement, 
whether these substances do or do not exist in those 
remote heavenly bodies. The starting point in spec- 
trum analysis is the spectrum of each individual sub- 
stance on the earth made luminous by sufficient heat 
to convert it into vapor. 

But, in order to apply spectrum analysis to astron- 
omy, it was necessary to know the relation between 
the emission and the absorption of light. In the year 
1860, Professor Kirchhoff, of Heidelberg, in a memoir 
on the relation between the emissive and absorptive 
powers of bodies for heat, as well as for light, an- 
nounced the law of the relation in these words : " The 
relation between the power of emission and the power 
of absorption of one and the same class of rays, is the 
same for all bodies at the same temperature." From 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 61 

this law it follows that gases and vapors, in transmit- 
ting light, absorb or impair precisely those rays (colors) 
which they themselves emit, when rendered luminous, 
while they remain perfectly transparent to all colored 
rays. Luminous sodium vapor, for example, gives, 
under ordinary circumstances, a spectrum of rme bright 
yellow double line : it, therefore, emits this yellow 
light only. If the white light of the sun be allowed 
to pass through the vapor of sodium, the vapor will 
abstract from the white light just those yellow rays 
which it emitted when in a luminous state. And 
while the greater part of these yellow rays are ab- 
sorbed by the sodium vapor, all the other rays, the 
red, orange, green, blue and violet, pass through unim- 
paired. Now, it is found, when the sun's light is 
analyzed by a prism, that a multitude of rays are 
extinguished, and that they are just those rays which 
would be emitted by the vapors of sodium, iron, 
calcium, magnesium, etc., were they made self-lumi- 
nous, and, consequently, the vapors of sodium, iron, 
potassium, calcium, barium, magnesium, manganese, 
titanium, chromium, nickel, cobalt, hydrogen, and 
probably others, must exist in the atmosphere which 
surrounds the sun, and as the sun is supposed to be in 
the highest state of incandesence, these metals must 
be present also in the body of the sun. Spectrum 
analysis thus makes the light, which comes from the 
heavenly bodies, upon strict inductive reasoning, dis- 
cover the chemical constitution of these bodies. 

Here let us pause and reflect upon the benefits con- 
ferred on England by the Baconian philosophy. It 
6 



62 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

has made her the greatest nation in the world. It has 
done more to develop her wealth than all the legisla- 
tion of all the statesmen who have adorned her history 
by their financial skill. It has given her hundreds of 
bushels of wheat, thousands of yards of cloths, and 
bestowed innumerable comforts, where, without its 
instrumentality, there would have been but one. It 
has enabled her to extend her commerce over the whole 
earth, and bring into her treasury countless millions of 
wealth. And this commerce is the source of her great 
power, both in war and peace, and is the means by 
which she is controlling the destinies of the world. 
And though her whole policy is to extend her com- 
merce by cultivating the arts of peace, yet it is true, 
that she sometimes (and we abhor the wickedness of it) 
pushes her commerce, by the thunders of her cannon, 
into regions where ignorance forbids its entrance ; but 
the people who are thus treated will in time learn that 
it is equally for their benefit, with that of England, 
that her trade is extended to their shores, and they 
will feel that peace is the true policy of the world, and 
that all men are mutually interested in each other's 
welfare and should live like members of one family. 
The commercial spirit of England is also the power 
which pioneers the way for the other great influences 
which she is exerting upon the civilization of the 
world. Her sciences, her arts and her literature are 
carried on the wings of her commerce over the whole 
earth. And the Christian religion is soon found 
smoothing the thorny pillow of the dying man, and 
pouring the balm of consolation over his drooping 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 63 

spirit, in every clime where British commerce has 
placed her foot. 

But the Baconian philosophy is not confined to phys- 
ical nature, as has been often asserted. It embraces all 
knowledge. Bacon expressly says that his method of 
investigation is intended to be applied to all the sci- 
ences. "Some may raise this question (says he) rather 
than objection, whether we talk of perfecting natural 
philosophy alone according to our method, or the other 
sciences also, such as logic, ethics, politics. We cer- 
tainly intend to comprehend them all. And as com- 
mon logic, which regulates matters by syllogisms, is 
applied not only to natural, but also to every other 
science, so our inductive method likewise comprehends 
them all." And in his Advancement of Learning, 
where he defines the boundaries of the different sci- 
ences, he has devoted as much attention to the intel- 
lectual and moral sciences as to the physical. But it 
is nevertheless true, that his labors were directed 
chiefly towards physical science, because, in this, there 
was the greater necessity for exertion ; as it was prin- 
cipally through ignorance of this part of knowledge 
that man was delayed in his career of civilization. 
And many, from the fact that Bacon has said so much 
about physical nature, misconceiving the scope and 
spirit of his philosophy, have asserted that it is con- 
fined to sense, and is utilitarian in the gross meaning 
of avarice, and that it necessarily leads to a selfish 
moral philosophy. 

It has happened to Bacon, as to other philosophers 
who have originated a new movement of the human 



64 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

mind, that the errors of many of his successors who 
claimed, and many who did not claim to be his disci- 
ples, have been charged to his philosophy, as its legiti- 
mate fruits. The doctrines of Hobbs, and Hume, and 
Hartly, and others in England, and of Condillac, and 
Helvetius, and D'Holbach, and the host of infidels 
and atheists in France, have been again and again pro- 
claimed as the legitimate and necessary deductions 
from the principles of the Baconian philosophy. The 
doctrines of the philosophers just mentioned resulted 
from these philosophers seizing upon some one only of 
the great principles of the Baconian philosophy, and 
carrying it out to the wildest extremes, without modi- 
fying it by the other principles of the system, and are, 
therefore, at most, nothing more than the errors which 
necessarily result in the development of the Baconian 
philosophy, and are not a part of that philosophy, but 
merely the exuvice thrown off from it as it passes 
through the process of development. Cicero, in his 
De Oratore, has remarked the very same thing of Soc- 
rates which we are now remarking of Bacon. " For, 
as they all," says he, "arose from Socrates, whose 
discourses were so various, different and universally 
diffused thai each learned somewhat that was different 
from the other; hence families, as it were, of philoso- 
phers were propagated, widely differing among them- 
selves and vastly unconnected with, and unlike one 
another; yet all of them affected to be called, and 
thought themselves the disciples of Socrates. For, in 
the first place, Aristotle and Xenocrates were the 
immediate scholars of Plato; the one of which was 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 65 

the founder of the Peripatetics, the other of the Aca- 
demics. Then from Antisthenes, who admired chiefly 
the patience and abstemiousness of Socrates in his dis- 
courses, arose first the Cynics and then the Stoics. 
Next from Aristippus, who was charmed with the sen- 
sual part of Socrates' discourses, the sect of the Cyre- 
nians flowed, whose doctrines he and his successors 
maintained without any disguise of sentiment. There 
were also other sects of philosophers, who generally 
professed themselves to be the followers of Socrates." 
We see, then, that all the different sects of philoso- 
phers who succeeded Socrates, the morose and abste- 
mious Stoic, and the gay and voluptuous Cyrenian, all 
claimed to be the true disciples of Socrates, and that 
Cicero says that their errors resulted from their seizing 
upon one principle only of the philosophy of Socrates, 
and losing sight of the other principles. The Stoics 
seized upon patience and abstemiousness, and the Cyre- 
nians upon sensual enjoyments, both of which, when 
modified by the other, are correct principles, but when 
carried to extremes, each is wrong, and will lead to 
false moral philosophy. Having thus indicated the 
source of the error which we are combating, we will 
now show that it is an error. 

The position that the Baconian philosophy leads to a 
selfish morality, is maintained by many on the ground 
that the Baconian philosophy admits but one source of 
ideas, viz: sensation. The argument is, that within 
the sphere of sensation, there is no idea of right and 
wrong — that pleasure and pain are the only ideas fur- 
nished by sensation to denote the moral qualities of 
6* 



66 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

human actions, because they give pleasure, and disap- 
prove of others, because they give pain ; and that, 
therefore, according to this theory of mind, utility is 
virtue, and self-interest the ground of moral obliga- 
tion. But we shall show, in the second chapter of the 
second part of this discourse, that the Baconian philos- 
ophy admits two sources of ideas, viz: sensation and 
consciousness; and, therefore, this argument falls to 
the ground, because the ideas of right and wrong are 
developed in consciousness, and it is in consciousness 
that the Baconian philosophy lays the foundation of 
morality, and not in sensation. 

According to the Baconian philosophy, we must 
examine all the facts of man's moral constitution, and 
establish the fundamental truths of moral philosophy 
by psychological observation. Rejecting all innate 
moral principles or notions, it appeals to experience, 
to both the light of nature and revelation. It, there- 
fore, leaves man perfectly free to examine all the facts 
of his moral constitution, and to establish whatever 
system - of morals a sound induction may warrant, 
whether the selfish or the disinterested system. When 
then we look into the heart of man, we there find cer- 
tain instinctive affections, such as love, hope, fear, 
anger, pity and many others which are all certainly 
disinterested in their nature, as they seek their respec- 
tive objects, by natural impulse or sympathy, without 
the mind's thinking of anything beyond, whether their 
satisfaction or disappointment will be agreeable or dis- 
agreeable. We also find in the mind the power to 
distinguish moral good and evil. It is upon these 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 67 

attributes of our spiritual nature that the Baconian 
philosophy founds morality. But let us inquire into 
these facts further and ascertain the relation in which 
the affections stand, to the power in the mind to dis- 
tinguish good and evil, or in other words, ascertain 
the connection between the feelings and the intellect. 
If a beautiful object be presented to the mind either 
through sense, memory or imagination, and occupies 
its attention exclusively, the emotion of love is, by 
a great psychological law, necessarily excited in the 
mind, and will continue until the object is removed, 
or forgotten, or some other object is presented in its 
stead. For it is a law of our mental constitution that 
every emotion, whether of love or hatred, is allied to 
some object of perception or memory or imagination, 
and is dependent upon it, as its antecedent or cause, 
and the emotion can never be excited in the mind 
except by its appropriate object being in the view of 
the mind, and never can cease to exist in the mind 
until the object is forgotten or removed from its view. 
Just as the mind sees so the heart feels. It is thus 
manifest that considerations of self have no agency in 
producing our emotions, whether of love or resent- 
ment, in the natural operations of the mind, and, con- 
sequently, the great law of the affections on which 
morality is based, is disinterested — operates uninflu- 
enced by considerations of self. Bivt this connection 
between the perceptions and the affections shows that 
the correctness of our moral philosophy will depend 
upon the enlightenment of our intellect and the purity 
of our affections. That goodness is goodness is hard 



68 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

to be perceived by the greatest minds, if the moral 
feelings are corrupt. This is a truth written in blood 
upon the pages of history. But whenever the mind 
perceives goodness or moral beauty, the heart js neces- 
sitated, by the great law of the affections just indicated, 
to feel the emotion proper to it, of love, and when it 
sees vice or moral ugliness, to feel the emotion proper 
to it, of aversion, and this without any consideration of 
self mingled in it. We see then, by this analytical in- 
duction, that the principle of morality is disinterested, 
because the Creator, by the great law of the affections, 
has made it imperative on us to love virtue for its own 
nature, having made it natural for the mind to love vir- 
tue and hate vice by creating the relations of love and 
hatred between them. But as man is not under a law 
of necessity, like mere brute matter, and incapable of 
change, the obliquity of his mind may become such as 
to render him unable to see the loveliness of virtue, 
which is the same as not seeing virtue at all, for love- 
liness is its very essence, just as the eye may be so 
diseased, as in jaundice, as to render him unable to see 
the real colors of objects, and the sinfulness of his own 
heart will cast its hue over virtue, just as the jaundice 
of the eye will cast its hue over the objects of vision, 
and neither the loveliness of the one nor the colors of 
the other can be perceived. The truth is, the percep- 
tion and the emotion constitute the state the mind is 
in when any object is present in thought, and they 
cannot be separated. They are not distinct acts of the 
mind, but are elements which make up the act of 
apprehension or spiritual discernment. And it was 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 69 

from the fact that Helvetius did not discern the truth, 
that perception and emotion are both elements of spir- 
itual discernment, and dwelt too exclusively upon the 
phenomena of emotion, that he fell into the error that 
all mental acts are nothing but feeling — that to think 
and to judge are but to feel, and that Diderot, in criti- 
cising this obvious error of Helvetius, fell into the 
opposite one, and maintained, in his essay on the origin 
and nature of the beautiful, that the perception of 
beauty by the mind is a matter of reason alone, like 
the perception of the truth that two and two make 
four. We see then, that according to the psychological 
facts which the Baconian philosophy points out as the 
foundation of morality, that its principle is disinter- 
ested. Man does certainly feel the moral Tightness of 
truth and justice, without any view at the time to their 
consequences, just as he feels an appetite for food with- 
out any view to its utility upon the animal economy — 
the one feeling terminates on virtue for its own sake 
and the other on food for its own sake. But God in 
his great benevolence has so "organized the system of 
things as to make that which is right, useful in such a 
vast majority of instances as to induce us, in cases 
where it is doubtful what is right, to use the relative 
utilities of the acts as the standard of their Tightness, 
and it has indeed induced some to maintain that utility 
is the essence of right. 

But some contend that the Baconian philosophy 
leads to a selfish morality, in a different mode from 
that which we have just examined. That it tends to 
corrupt the moral feelings by infusing into them the 



70 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

spirit of selfishness in directing so much inquiry into 
the development of the resources of physical nature, 
and thus making man to think continually about his 
physical comforts, and to place too much value upon 
the riches of this world. That the Baconian philoso- 
phy has done more than all other philosophies put 
together to develop the resources of physical nature, 
and thereby to multiply the physical comforts of man, 
we have already shown ; and, so far from shunning 
this result, or wishing to conceal it, it has been the 
main purpose of this part of our discourse, to exhibit 
the fact in all its amplitude, and to proclaim it as the 
chief glory of the philosophy which we expound. If 
such a result makes man selfish, then is the destitution 
of barbarism better fitted to produce a sound morality 
than the wealth of civilization. Then is man, clothed 
in skins, possessed of more generous sympathies than 
when clothed in the comfortable fabrics of cultivated 
art; and his heart contracts to a narrower selfishness 
when he accumulates wealth by millions than when he 
saves it by mites. If these be true propositions, then 
have we entirely misread human history. The fallacy 
of these conclusions shows the falsity of the premises 
from which they are deduced. And it is evident that 
the whole tendency of the Baconian philosophy is to 
elevate the condition of man. It enables him to sup- 
ply his physical wants by a small portion of labor, 
and to devote his consequent leisure to the cultiva- 
tion of science and art. And it dignifies and ennobles 
the employments which are devoted to the promotion 
of our physical comforts, by connecting them with the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 71 

sciences. Under its influence mechanics are no longer 
mere handicraftsmen, but are men of science, possessed 
of enlarged views of human advancement. Watt and 
Fulton occupy the highest places amongst the benefac- 
tors of mankind, and are quite as fit to join that 
divine assembly of spirits, where Cicero, in his De 
Sencctute, rejoices that he shall meet Cato, as either of 
those sages of antiquity. 

But let us throw aside all speculation and look to 
facts. Where is the nation that can boast a literature 
pervaded by a loftier morality than England? It is 
true that some of her writers maintain the selfish sys- 
tem of morals, and some the disinterested. But this 
has been the case at every era of philosophical devel- 
opment in every nation of the civilized w T orld. In 
morals, as in everything else, men often bewilder 
themselves in the minuteness of analysis. Those who 
maintain the system of disinterested morals differ as 
to the basis of morals. One class referring our moral 
ideas to a special faculty, termed the moral sense, others 
to reason, and others to both the reason and the sensi- 
bility. And those also who maintain the selfish sys- 
tem differ widely as to the basis of their principle. 
This is inseparable from the nature of the subject, for 
it is not purely a philosophical subject, but derives 
more of its light from revelation than from nature; 
and, therefore, in attempting to ascertain the philo- 
sophical foundation of moral obligation, we shall often 
find our line too short to reach the bottom. The diffi- 
culties are inherent in the subject ; and they have been 
more nearly overcome by the English than any other 



72 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

people. And not only is the literature, which has 
grown up under the influence of the Baconian philoso- 
phy, pervaded by a lofty morality, but the people who 
have drunk most copiously at its fountains, and whose 
mental habits and moral principles have been formed 
under its influence, are distinguished by their disinter- 
ested benevolence. They dispense millions annually 
in charities at home, and their benevolent societies are 
healing the sick, clothing the naked and feeding the 
hungry, and instructing the ignorant in every clime of 
the earth. 

In examining this question, we must distinguish the 
commercial spirit of England, from the spirit of phi- 
lanthropy. While the first toils by day and by night 
to accumulate wealth, the latter toils by day and by 
night to expend it in alleviating the sufferings of the 
afflicted of all nations, and kindreds and tongues. 
How superficial and ignorant then, is the opinion so 
often expressed, that the Baconian philosophy leads to 
a selfish morality ! We have shown the contrary, both 
by philosophical analysis and historical fact, which are 
the only two modes of proof of which the subject is 
susceptible. 

The same class of thinkers w r ho maintain that the 
Baconian philosophy is purely sensual, a mere pander 
to our animal comforts, maintain also, that it has no 
ideal, and is utterly inconsistent with all the arts of 
beauty. That its main object is to make money plenty 
in men's pockets; and that the spirit and style of its 
kindred poetry is exemplified in the following couplet: 

U A penny sav'd is two-pence clear, 
A pin a clay's a groat a year." 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 73 

Let us examine the truth of thi£ charge. The 
Baconian philosophy, as we shall show in the second 
chapter of the second part of this discourse recognizes 
consciousness as fully as it does sensation, as a source of 
ideas, and consequently just as fully embraces within 
its scope, the world of mind with all its subjective 
realities, as it does the world of matter with all its 
objective realities. It takes therefore in its view, all 
the phenomena of the spiritual world, as well as of 
the materia], and all the adaptations between these 
different worlds, from which the sublime and beautiful 
in art, can be educed. And it teaches a grander and 
a nobler, because a truer style of literature, than any 
philosophy which has been the source of culture to 
any people known in history. It takes nature for its 
model — the archetype which God has made — and re- 
pudiates all that is speculative in taste, as it does all 
that is speculative in reasoning. And the true theory 
of taste, is to imitate nature, not it is true, by a servile 
copy, but by exalting her — by making her beauty 
more beautiful, and her sublimity more sublime — but 
still by letting the beauty and sublimity, be the beauty 
and sublimity of nature, merely exalted. For the 
human heart was formed to suit the natural, and the 
natural was formed to suit the human heart, to call 
forth all its powers. Some things, by a great patho- 
logical law are agreeable to the human heart, and 
others, disagreeable. Some things naturally excite the 
feelings of sublimity, and others the feelings of beauty. 
These things are formed respectively by the Creator for 
the very purpose. It is an adaptation of the external 
7 



74 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

world, to the spiritual constitution of man. The prov- 
ince then, of the science of taste, is to ascertain, what 
those things are, and the distinguishing property which 
constitutes them, in both the material and spiritual 
worlds, which naturally, and of their own original 
adaptation, excite the emotion of the beautiful or the 
sublime, or any other emotion, which it is the object of 
art to call forth. For some things will excite these 
emotions by association, and not of their own nature; 
and consequently are not so well calculated to produce 
these emotions, as the things from which they have 
derived this power by association ; and in fact cannot 
excite these emotions at all, in minds in which, they 
have not been associated, with the things from which 
they have derived this adventitious power. Truth or 
conformity to nature, then, is the great standard of 
taste. For there is a true in taste, a true in morals, 
as well as a true in matter; and all of them are to be 
ascertained by inductive observation, and not by specu- 
lative conjecture. Surely then, the literature which 
springs up as an offshoot of that philosophy which 
directs all our observations to nature, and admits no 
criterions whether in science or art, but the natural, is 
most likely to approach nearest to nature in its repre- 
sentations of the sublime and the beautiful and all that 
aifects the human heart. And did the speculations of 
the philosophers of ancient times and of the middle 
age, ever present such sublime and such beautiful 
visions before the fancy, as the Baconian philosophy 
has spread out in the vast perspective of modern dis- 
coveries? The truth is, the views of nature as pre- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 75 

sented in these discoveries have a grace and a grandeur, 
a beauty and a sublimity far above all the visions of 
fancy that ever lay in the enchanting walks of specu- 
lation or poetry. Induction has in fact evolved higher 
standards of sublimity and beauty, than imagination 
ever bodied forth in its most rapturous visions of the 
ideal. How then, can the Baconian philosophy lead 
to a mean literature, when it familiarizes the mind to 
the most sublime and beautiful objects of contempla- 
tion? It must have the opposite effect. It must give 
a loftier ideal to the orator and the poet than the mere 
speculative philosophies ever furnished. And no wri- 
ter has presented a more exalted estimate of poetry, 
and delineated its high behests with more accuracy 
than Bacon himself. "The use of poesy (says he in 
the Advancement of Learning) hath been to give some 
shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those 
points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the 
world being in proportion inferior to the soul ; by 
reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man 
a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a 
more absolute variety than can be found in the nature 
of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of 
true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth 
the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater 
and more heroical : because true history propoundeth 
the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to 
the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns 
them more just in retribution, and more according to 
revealed providence : because true history representeth 
actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, 



76 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and 
more unexpected and alternative variations : so as it 
appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to mag- 
nanimity, morality and delectation. A And therefore it 
was ever thought to have some participation of divine- 
ness, because it doth raise and erect the mind by sub- 
mitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; 
whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto 
the nature of things." This admirable delineation of 
the objects and nature of poetry, sounds doubtless, in 
the ears of those whose opinions we are examining, 
more like the language of Homor or Dante or Milton 
descanting on his divine art, than like the language of 
the father of the experimental philosophy. The truth 
is, the mighty and various and finely-fashioned mind of 
Bacon is as little understood by this class of thinkers 
as the spirit and scope of his philosophy. His mind 
was a mirror held up to nature, which reflected it, in 
all its vastness and all its minuteness, all its sublimity 
and all its beauty : revealing as much from the spi- 
ritual world as from the material — from the dark 
abysses of the human heart, as from the hidden depths 
of matter. 

The chief ground, on which, the opinion that the 
Baconian philosophy leads to a mean literature, appears 
to rest, as far as anything definite can be gathered from 
the loose and vague generality of the language in 
which it is usually expressed, is that this philosophy 
directs the mind so exclusively to considerations of 
utility, that it renders it incapable of appreciating the 
beautiful. This is a singularly erroneous view of the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 77 

matter. For it is not immediate considerations of 
utility which prompt the Baconian philosopher to his 
inquiries. But it is the love of truth — the delight of 
viewing new truths evolved in ever varying forms of 
beauty from the multifarious facts which beset the 
path of investigation — the felt triumph of the march 
over the difficulties of science, as the enquirer steps 
from altitude to altitude on the before untrodden steeps 
of investigation, until he reaches a summit, from 
whence he can descry the goodly classifications and 
the harmonies of principle evolving themselves from 
the chaos of facts which lie spread out in such bound- 
less profusion over the vast regions of the universe. 
These are the considerations which prompt the Baco- 
nian philosopher to his inquiries. And after he has 
discovered some new principle, then it is, that in 
accordance with the spirit of his philosophy, he enters 
upon considerations of utility in its applications to the 
relief of human w r ants. The Baconian philosophy, 
though considerations of utility embrace so much of 
its aim, and constitute so much of its glory, does not 
reject the beautiful, but embraces both it and the use- 
ful in perfect harmony within the universality of its 
doctrines. And though the physical sciences to which 
this philosophy has directed so much attention, are 
emphatically the sciences of utility, still their study, 
as the opinion which we are examining presupposes, 
does not necessarily lead the mind off from the study 
of the beautiful, or blunt its relish for objects of taste. 
The relation between the different branches of know- 
ledge is much more intimate than this supposition 
7* 



78 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

assumes. Such is this intimacy, that the physical 
science, which of all others, appears to the superficial 
observer, to be the most remote from any affinity to the 
arts of beauty, has been applied to two of these arts 
with the most felicitous success. Sir Charles Bell has 
applied his discoveries in the nervous system to the 
arts of painting and sculpture. Having discovered 
that, besides the two great systems of nerves of sensa- 
tion and motion, other nerves went to the muscles and 
moved them, and that these arose from a tract of the 
spine separate from either of the two columns origi- 
nating the other nerves, and that they went chiefly to 
those muscles which subserve the purposes of respira- 
tion ; and that as the function of respiration in man 
w 7 as not designed for the sole purpose of vitalizing the 
blood in the lungs, but also, for communicating the 
thoughts and passions of his soul, he had the genius to 
perceive, that the nerves regulating respiration, must 
be the nerves of expression and emotion. He there- 
fore under the impulse of a most exalted genius for the 
arts of beauty, developed this grand idea, and wrote 
his celebrated work, the " Anatomy of Expression 
in Painting," and in this way applied his discovery 
of the nerves of respiration to teaching the painter 
a knowledge by which he may imitate and under- 
stand and correctly depict the ever- varying play of 
human passion. And thus a man who spent his 
life in dissecting the bodies of his fellow-men and of 
the inferior animals, could pass out of this butcherly 
employment, as those whose opinions we are exam- 
ining would esteem it, and teach us how to breathe 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 79 

life and feeling into the canvass. And Bell himself 
was one of the finest painters of his day — was no 
less skilful with the pencil of the painter, than with 
the knife of the surgeon. Though, after the battle 
of Waterloo, he went to the scene of slaughter and 
spent days and nights amidst the dead and dying, 
sleeping only one hour and a half out of the twenty- 
four, for the purpose of perfecting himself in mili- 
tary surgery, yet at a later period of his life, we 
find him making a pilgrimage to Rome, to view in 
that imperial city, the noble remains of ancient art, 
to enable him to put the finishing touch upon his 
" Anatomy of Expression in Painting." See then ! 
how extraordinary and mysterious is the connection 
between utility and beauty, between the anatomy of 
the nervous system and the art of painting. The 
same discoveries are applied to the arts of utility 
and to the arts of beauty, to medicine and to paint- 
ing. 

But let us illustrate this point a little further. 
Geometricians have discovered what is the curve of 
greatest resistance or solidity, and have thus estab- 
lished a fact of the greatest utility in architecture. 
Michael Angelo, in forming the model of the dome of 
St. Peter's at Rome, gave it that oval or curve which 
appeared to his judgment, as an artist, to be the most 
beautiful as drawn on the given breadth and height. 
And such is the exquisite beauty of the dome that it 
fills every beholder with admiration. It is said that 
the distinguished geometrician, M. de la Hire, being 
at Rome, w r as so struck by the elegance of this struc- 



80 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

tu re, that he determined to inquire into the rationale 
of its impression on the mind; and on examining the 
geometrical properties of the curve of its outline, he 
found that it was that of the greatest resistance or 
solidity. And thus it is ascertained, that in this in- 
stance, what is the most solid or useful in art is also 
the most beautiful. And what an extraordinary proof 
does it furnish of the sublimity of the genius of 
Michael Angelo for the beautiful in art, that in his 
attempt to sketch the oval outline of the greatest 
beauty for the dome, he should, by the mere exercise 
of his judgment as an artist, have hit upon the exact 
curve with mathematical precision. For the identity 
of the curve of the greatest beauty with that of the 
greatest utility could never have been ascertained ex- 
cept by some sublime genius in the felicity of his 
judgment, ascertaining the first, as it were, by an 
inspired intuition, and then the geometrician, by the 
unerring calculus of his science, discovering that what 
the artist has thus conceived to be the most beautiful 
oval outline, is the exact mathematical curve of the 
greatest resistance. And this, upon the doctrine of 
probabilities, amounts almost to a demonstration, that 
the curves of utility and beauty are the same. 

But the fact that utility and beauty are of a very 
kindred nature, or rather, that the first is often an 
important ingredient of the last, does not need further 
illustration. For so frequently are they found con- 
joined both in art and nature, that some philosophers, 
though very erroneously, have been led to insist, that 
utility is the essence of beauty — that beauty consists 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 81 

in the fitness of things or the adaptation of parts, just 
as some philosophers have been led by a like partial 
view, to insist that utility is the essence of moral good, 
from the frequency of the union of the expedient and 
the right in the moral economy of the world. 

We can now, from the altitude to which our analysis 
has carried us, take a wide survey of the topic which 
we are discussing, and see by the light of science, how 
ignorant and grovelling is that view of the Baconian 
philosophy, which sees in its vast range nothing but 
a sordid utility, while that utility w T hich is consistent 
with all that is noble in morality and sublime and 
beautiful in art, is the doctrine which it teaches from 
the first aphorism in the Novum Organum, to the end 
of its last lesson. 

But it is useless to dwell longer upon philosophical 
analysis, when we have historical proof that the Baco- 
nian philosophy is consistent with the arts of beauty, 
in the noble productions of English literature; for the 
literature of every nation partakes of the nature of its 
philosophy, as the very charge which we are consider- 
ing assumes. Where then is there a nobler literature 
than that which has been cultivated in the same soil, 
and by the same people, with the Baconian philoso- 
phy? Shakspeare, who was the contemporary and 
friend of Bacon, and whose productions are so signally 
marked with the common sense which, arising in the 
Baconian philosophy, pervades the whole of English 
civilization, stands at the head of the dramatic writers 
of the world. As though he had borrowed the magic 
wand of nature herself, he creates all beings with the 



82 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY, 



same ease that she does, and fixes them in their appro- 
priate employments, and plans and executes their dif- 
ferent offices, with an exactitude which shows that 
every act proceeds from its natural motive, and every 
destiny from a plan of coincidents in exact conformity 
to the dispensations of Providence. The most dread- 
ful passions are managed with as easy a conformity to 
nature, as the most gentle. Murder, with its ferocity 
and its relenting, its determination and its hesitancy, 
before it reddens its hands in blood, and its remorse, 
and its imaginative agony, after it has done the dark 
deed, is dramatized with as much perfection as if the 
poet had seen with his eye the naked heart of the 
murderer throbbing in guilt. And with equal ease, 
true love is presented in all its artlessness, whispering 
its aifection in words as soft and simple and sweet, as 
the attic bee ever distilled upon the lips of a Grecian 
shepherdess; or else, sitting silent, under the restrain- 
ing diffidence of a pure heart, " until concealment, like 
a worm in the bud, feeds upon her damask cheek/' 
And jealousy, that monster of suspicion, to whom, 
" trifles light as air, are confirmation strong as proofs 
of holy writ/ 7 is presented in all his odiousness. And 
avarice standing by his bond, and humor holding both 
his sides, and every human passion are presented in 
ideal perfection. The dark and awful and mysterious 
abyss of the human heart is completely fathomed, and 
the poet sees by the light of Christianity, how fear- 
fully and wonderfully it is made, and paints it, as with 
a pencil dipped in inspiration. And though Greece 
had her Homer, England has her Milton ; and never 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 83 

since the angels' harps, which hailed the morn of the 
creation, has a nobler been strung than his. The 
angels sang the joys of life, Milton the woes of death. 
And did a deeper melody, and fuller of the dirge-like 
sounds of woe, ever flow from the versification of 
poetry ? Was the great epic of eternal death in all 
its horrors, ever before made a reality to the living? 
Catching the sublime pathos of the old poets of Judea, 
and the fire and finish and copiousness of Greece, and 
transforming and subordinating all to the type of his 
own mighty genius, he has made a poem worthy of 
the great theme of the fall of man. The contrast 
between paradisaical innocence and happiness, and 
infernal wickedness and misery, is presented in terrific 
reality. Such is the grace and beauty and lovliness of 
the first woman as she appears to the creative fancy 
of the poet, that he represents Satan, though with a 
bosom filled with the malice of hell, and intent upon 
the destruction of man, merely because man was inno- 
cent and happy, as captivated for a moment by her 
charms as he beheld her alone, amidst the rich shrub- 
bery of Eden, enchanting the scene of bliss she moved 
in. But this exquisite sympathy of the poet for true 
loveliness, does not, for one moment, lead his judg- 
ment astray, so as to make him soften the character of 
Satan. For the unconquerable malignity and insatia- 
ble hate of the arch fiend, is depicted in all its dreadful 
deformity ; and the horrors of hell are seen amidst the 
" darkness visible/' in such horrifying import as to 
show that " there hope never comes, that comes to all" 
The poet is always master of himself; is never over- 



84 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

powered by the sublimity, nor enchained by the beauty 
of his conceptions; but with the self-possession of a 
great artist, he sets forth every thing in its proper 
position, and in its proper character, and in language 
so expressive and so suited to every tropic, as to place 
hi in perhaps at the very head of the great masters of 
diction. And Butler, in his Hudibras, has given to 
the world, the great epic of ridicule. With a fancy 
alive to the ludicrous, he has caught its minutest 
shades in every action of life, and presented them in 
an epic poem ; and thereby the majestic epic becomes 
ludicrous. The conceptions of the poem are ludic- 
rous, the language is ludicrous, and even the very 
rhymes. The poet, it is true, shoots keen shafts at 
his fellow-men, but they are dipped in the unction of 
good-nature, and not in the venom of malice. Such 
a poem furnishes entertainment to one of the most 
important faculties of the human soul, the sense of the 
ludicrous — which ministers so much to the smiles of 
home, the gaities of companionship, and by its goodly 
influences so often sweetens the sourness of our feel- 
ings amidst the annoyances and the ills of life, and 
opens the heart to the frailties of human kind, and 
makes us sympathize with the whole race, rich and 
poor, learned and ignorant, as we see their extravagan- 
cies through the amiable medium of a laughing heart — 
and is therefore worthy of a place amongst the great 
works of art. And Robert Burns, with his harp tuned, 
now to merry, and now to sorrowful music, is heard 
amidst the choir of English poetry, reviving by his 
natural strains, the youthful freshness of human feel- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 85 

ing, and keeping in harmony, those delicately tuned 
chords of the heart, which in the trials of life are so 
apt to lose the sweetness of their primitive melody. 
But, we will not particularize further ; for the English 
muse has sung of every theme in original strains; and 
has also proved the beauty and strength and copious- 
ness and flexibility of the English language by trans- 
lating into it the master-pieces of antiquity, and showed 
that the streams are almost as pure in these channels, 
as in their Grecian and Roman fountains. 

The prose literature of England also is rich in its 
abundance of matter and excellence of style and the 
wide range of its topics. Her historians are superior 
to any of modern times, and perhaps equal to those 
of ancient. Her orators, as suited to the sphere of 
modern civilization, are equal to any, in any period of 
human history. In profound views of human nature, 
in far insight into the policy of legislation, and in all 
the knowledge of statesmanship, English oratory is 
far before that of antiquity. And in the mere art, 
English oratory is not easily surpassed. In the choice 
of those topics, both local and general, which lead the 
intellect and the heart captive, and in the easy and 
shining fluency of narrative, the sparkling ripples of 
wit, the bold and headlong and dashing cataracts of 
declamation, and the full and swelling, and sweeping 
and overwhelming tide of argument, and the light- 
ning's flash of suddenly provoked invective which 
illuminates the whole flood of speech, and falls merci- 
lessly upon its victim, it may well compare with that 
of any nation ancient or modern. In criticism also, 
8 



86 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

whether exegetical or purely rhetorical, English litera- 
ture is highly distinguished. And as a specimen of 
historical criticism, there is nothing so ingenious, so 
original, so masterly, so triumphant and so to be mar- 
velled at, as Paley's "Horae Paulinae." It is a won- 
der of ingenuity — a miracle of logical acumen. Facts 
in the epistles of Paul, which separately send forth a 
mere glimmer of light, and which are apparently so 
unconnected as never to beat all associated in thought, 
by even careful readers, are selected and brought to- 
gether in logical combination, and the feeble lights of 
each are so concentrated upon the fact sought after, 
and the fact is so illuminated in every point, that you 
can no more doubt of its truth than you can of the 
reality of day, when the sun ascends the meridian. In 
prose fiction, too, what literature can compare with the 
English? Where else can so unique a group of such 
masterly productions of their kind be found as the Pil- 
grim's Progress of Bunyan, the Robinson Crusoe of 
De Foe, the Gulliver's Travels of Swift, and the Tris- 
tram Shandy of Sterne? And how many thousands 
of all cultivated nations have been charmed by the 
magic writings of Walter Scott ! The young and the 
old, the learned and the ignorant, the wicked and the 
pious, have all been carried along on the enchanting 
tide of his narrative as it flowed from its exhaustless 
fountain, through the ever-varying scenes of an epito- 
mized world, and all have been equally delighted with 
the wonderful exhibition. Such, then, is the litera- 
ture, laden with so many masculine beauties, which 
has been cultivated in the same soil and by the same 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 87 

people, with the Baconian philosophy. How errone- 
ous, then, is the opinion, that the Baconian philoso- 
phy has no ideal, but is confined to sense, and leads to 
a mean literature. 

While answering the charge just considered, we have 
admitted that the literature of every nation or epoch 
partakes of the nature of the philosophy of that nation 
or epoch ; because it is a well-established historical 
fact, and is in truth, nothing more than the exhibition 
by a people of the same bent of mind in literature and 
philosophy. The common sense of the Baconian phi- 
losophy is manifested throughout every department of 
English literature. The characters in Shakspeare's 
plays are not mere personified qualities like the per- 
sons in an allegory, but are real men and women, such 
as we meet with in the world, actuated by the same 
diversity of motives and seeing the same objects. The 
particular passion sought to be delineated is individu- 
alized in some person, and the excellence of the delin- 
eation consists in the harmony between the passion, 
though exhibited in all its ideal exaltation, and the 
character in which it is set forth. For example, mur- 
der and avarice, and jealousy and humor are not 
exhibited each in some metaphysical creature, which 
has no other passion than the one exemplified, but in 
real characters, which can sympathize with the circum- 
stances of real life, and are at times under the influ- 
ence of all the other passions of man, as different 
situations call them forth. Murder is exhibited in 
Macbeth, avarice in Shylock, jealousy in Othello and 
humor in Falstaff, who are all men full of the com- 



88 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

mon sympathies of humanity. This is the greatest 
triumph of the dramatic art, to invest the ideal with 
humanity. It is true that Shakspeare also created 
such characters as Calaban ; but this was merely a 
wayward freak of his genius. And the same charac- 
teristic is exhibited in the writings of Milton. His 
fiends and angels are not metaphysical abstractions, but 
are men exalted into superhuman greatness. Though 
Satan does not appear " less than archangel ruined/ 7 
still he appears like a wicked man of superhuman 
powers. And the angels appear such as we may 
imagine good men may become in a world where all 
their powers are exalted. This likening of spirits to 
men, we are well aware, has been censured by some 
critics as a great impropriety, and the Mephistophiles 
of Goethe, which is a metaphysical incarnation of sin, 
has been reckoned a finer delineation of the spirit of 
wickedness than the Satan of Milton. But this criti- 
cism, we apprehend, is founded in a misconception of 
the nature of the poetic art, whose province it is to 
seize upon practical criterions, and not upon specula- 
tive — to deal with realities, and such things as can be 
made so much like realities as to awaken the common 
sympathies of the human heart, and not with meta- 
physical abstractions — to be like Shakspeare, and not 
like Goethe, like Robert Burns, and not like Cole- 
ridge. But be this as it may, Milton has certainly 
taken a common sense view, and not a metaphysical 
one, of his great theme, and thereby showed the 
national trait of his mind. And Butler has taken a 
common sense view of human nature in his great 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 89 

poem. Hudibras, with all his ludicrous fanaticism 
and solemn folly, is still a man; and so of every other 
character. And as to the poetry of Burns, it expresses 
more of natural feeling, such feeling as all men have, 
than that of any poet known to history. But it is 
useless to dwell upon this topic, for all the late writers 
upon the history of literature on the contineht of 
Europe have made special reference to the fact that 
English literature is pervaded by a vein of common 
sense. The English have even examined the evi- 
dences of Christianity according to the principles of 
the inductive method, or of common sense. Butler, 
in his analogy, has drawn conclusions as to the truth 
of Christianity from the analogy which exists between 
it and the course of Providence as exhibited in nature, 
which is as strictly an inductive process as any used in 
the investigotions of natural philosophy. 

But there is a still graver charge brought against the 
Baconian philosophy. It is said to lead to material- 
ism and atheism. DeMaistre, in his commentary on 
the philosophy of Bacon, says : " Every line of Bacon 
conducts to materialism, but in no part has he shown 
himself a more skilful sophist, a more refined, pro- 
found and dangerous hypocrite than in what he has 
written on the soul." And Schlegel, in his history of 
literature, says: " The philosophy of sensation, which 
was unconsciously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, 
and reduced to the shape of a regular system by Locke, 
first displayed in France, the true immorality and de- 
structiveness of which it is the parent, and assumed 
the appearance of a perfect sect of atheism." " In the 
8* 



90 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

second chapter of the second part of this discourse, it 
will be shown that the Baconian philosophy recognizes 
the testimony of consciousness as fully as it does that 
of sensation. If this be so, how can that philosophy 
lead to materialism ? Consciousness tells us that the 
soul is not material, for we are certainly concious that 
its attributes are not those of matter. Sensation in- 
forms us of the material world, consciousness of the 
spiritual world, and we have no right, according to any 
rule of evidence or logic, to predicate in the way of 
philosophical affirmation, any idea derived from the 
materia] world, of the objects of the spiritual world, 
because the ideas of the qualities or attributes of spirit 
we get from consciousness, and we cannot predicate of 
spirit any quality but what is ascertained by conscious- 
ness ; and neither can we predicate of matter any 
quality but what is ascertained by sensation. We have 
no evidence, therefore, that the soul is material, because 
the knowledge of its nature is derived from a source 
from which not one idea appertaining to matter is 
derived. The Baconian philosophy, therefore, admits 
the same amount of evidence in favor of the immate- 
riality of the soul that the a priori philosophy does, 
and, therefore, rests upon the same foundation in this 
particular. 

And so far from the Baconian philosophy being athe- 
istical, Bacon has defined the boundaries and pointed 
out the nature of the evidence upon which natural 
theology rests upon the principles of his philosophy, 
with admirable precision. He says it is a knowledge 
which " may be truly termed divine in respect of its 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 91 

object, and natural in respect of its light." And no 
nation has cultivated natural theology with such assi- 
duity and success as the English. The more the Baco- 
nian philosophy has been cultivated the more has natu- 
ral theology advanced. It is in fact the boast of this 
philosophy that it has revived the study of natural 
theology after it had been abandoned and scouted by 
the philosophers of the continent of Europe as an 
unprofitable study. " It gave a particular pleasure to 
Sir Isaac Newton," (says Maclaurin, in his account of 
the writings of Newton,) " to see that his philosophy 
had contributed to promote an attention to final causes, 
as I have heard him observe, after Des Cartes and 
others had endeavored to ban r sh them." And where 
is the great work of Paley ? the two first chapters of 
which approach as near to the certainty of mathemati- 
cal demonstration as it is possible for moral reasonings 
to do. The evidences of natural theology pass through 
the achromatic mind of the author without being dis- 
colored by prejudice or passion, and paint upon his 
pages their doctrines with all the life and precision of 
daguerreotype. And yet there never was a mind more 
thoroughly imbued by the philosophy of sensation, as 
Schlegel calls it, than Paley's. And the Bridgewater 
treatises have brought all the discoveries of the Baco- 
nian philosophy to prove and illustrate natural theol- 
ogy. And Bishop Butler, even in his day, considered 
natural theology as so well established in English 
philosophy that he assumed its truth as the foundation 
of his great work on the analogy between natural and 
revealed religion. So we see that in English philoso- 



92 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

phy, revelation, natural theology and physical science 
are united in perfect harmony, proclaiming with one 
voice that there is a God. 

Such, then, is the character of the Baconian or Eng- 
lish philosophy: it embraces everything that is sublime 
in speculation, useful in practice, lofty in morality, 
beautiful in art, and reverential in religion. 

We now feel ourselves free to declare, that Bacon 
has done more to advance the progress of the human 
mind than any uninspired man known to history. 
There are no writings in the whole of literature which 
take so profound a view of human nature, and point 
out so exalted a destiny for man, as his. With a phi- 
losophical forecast unparalleled in the world, he has 
given anticipations of some of the greatest discoveries 
of modern science. Even the law of gravity is con- 
jectured, and its application to the explication of the 
tides of the ocean is distinctly stated. And his philos- 
ophy possesses within itself the principle of perpetual 
progress; for, it is not like the ancient philosophies, 
confined to speculative principles, from which an ex- 
planation of all things is to be deduced, and as these 
principles are in time found to be incapable of explain- 
ing the phenomena of nature, the ancient philosophies 
all sink into skepticism and become extinct, but it is 
commensurate with the phenomena of the universe, as 
it deals with phenomena, and deduces its principles from 
them, and not them from its principles. It is therefore 
not like the ancient philosophies, a means of culture 
and progress for one people or epoch only, exhausting 
itself upon that people or epoch, but it is the means of 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 93 

culture and progross for all the nations and periods of 
the world. The nations which have been most under 
its influence have risen superior to all the rest of the 
human family, and have advanced progressively, and 
their speed is daily accelerated to a degree of intellec- 
tual development and moral superiority, and political 
power, which seem to indicate that it is destined to 
form the type of the civilization of a greater part, if 
not of all the human race. And that this progress is 
likely to be perpetual is also indicated by the fact that 
England, the nation which has most assiduously culti- 
vated this philosophy, stands at the head of modern 
civilization, and is not only the great progressive and 
regenerative nation of modern times, but is also emi- 
nently conservative, possessing, in happy combination, 
the element of both progress and stability. She never 
loses sight of ancient landmarks in her progressive 
movements. How often, for example, has she thrown 
her conservative influence over the troubled waters of 
European politics, even when the commotion received 
its first impulse from the influence of her own princi- 
ples of government ! Scarcely has a half of a cen- 
tury elapsed since she exerted all her power to rescue 
Christendom from political and moral ruin, brought 
about by a revolution with which, at first, she sympa- 
thized strongly. And it seems, at this distance of time 
from the event, that if it had not been for her, all 
Europe would have retrograded in civilization. Dur- 
ing the awful storm of the French revolution, when 
almost every government of Europe lay a wreck upon 
the tremendous tossings of the political waters, a gleam 



94 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

of hope still broke across the scene, as the wise men 
of the earth turned towards England and saw that, 
freighted with the best interests of humanity, secure 
in her strength, she was riding out the storm. 

We have, therefore, strong reason to hope that the 
Baconian philosophy, sanctified by the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, will pour its sanative floods over all the earth, 
and bring back all nations from the delirious wander- 
ings of the a priori philosophy, to walk in the plain 
and sober paths of common sense. 



PART THE SECOND. 



CHAPTER THE FIRST. 



The Baconian Method of Investigation, 

The object of this chapter is to exhibit the Method 
of Investigation taught by Bacon in the Novum Or- 
ganum. As the best mode of doing this, we will first 
sketch an outline of the Logic taught by Aristotle in 
his Organum, and show its nature and its province, 
and then sketch an outline of the Method of Investi- 
gation taught by Bacon in his Novum Organum, and 
show its nature and its province, and compare the two, 
and point out their differences. Let us then commence 
with an analysis of the reasoning process, as it is of 
this, that the Organum of Aristotle treats. 

We frequently observe in the best writers upon 
science, a vagueness and contradiction of 'expression in 
regard to the reasoning process, that evince the gr.eatest 
looseness of opinion in regard to its nature. We 
frequently meet with such expressions as "the induc- 
tive process of reasoning/' "the true method of reason- 
ing, which Bacon taught," " the erroneous method of 
syllogistic reasoning which Aristotle invented," and 
many other such expressions, which clearly indicate 
that the writers suppose, that there is more than one 
mode of reasoning. Nothing can be more erroneous 

95 



96 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

than such a supposition. No matter what be the sub- 
ject upon which the mind is employed, whether in the 
spiritual or material world — whether in metaphysics, 
ethics, politics, mathematics, or in the different branches 
of natural philosophy, the reasoning process is always 
the same. The process is always from the known, or 
that which is assumed as known, to the unknown ; 
and is always reducible to a syllogism. The syllogism 
is in fact the process of reasoning; for though every 
argument does not pass through the mind in the strict 
logical form of the syllogism, yet in every instance of 
reasoning, all the parts of a syllogism are contemplated 
by the mind. Some seem to entertain the notion, that 
the syllogism is a peculiar kind of reasoning — that it 
is not the natural process of the mind in reasoning, but 
is an artificial mode invented by Aristotle. Let us 
test this notion, by analyzing an argument presented 
in its common form, "The world exhibits marks of 
design, it therefore has an intelligent author." Now 
the process which takes place in the mind, in forming 
this argument, is the syllogism ; as will be seen, if we 
attempt to refute the argument. Suppose we deny the 
truth of the argument, we must do it upon one of two 
grounds. Either upon the ground, that the world does 
not exhibit marks of design, or upon the ground, that 
even if it does, still it may not have an intelligent 
author. An objection upon either of these grounds is 
a full denial of the argument. What dues this prove? 
Why, that the argument rests upon two assumptions. 
First, upon the assumption, that whatever exhibits 
marks of design has an intelligent author, and, sec- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 97 

ondly, that the world exhibits marks of design. The 
two assumptions are evidently the premises from which 
the conclusion is deduced; for if either of them be 
false, the conclusion must be false, and if both of 
them be true, the conclusion must be true. As then 
both of these assumptions are absolutely essential to 
the truth of the conclusion, the mind must have con- 
templated them in coming to the conclusion ; for other- 
wise it would not be warranted in forming any such 
conclusion. Indeed, it is impossible to form such a 
conclusion, without considering "both of these assump- 
tions; for they are the evidence upon which it rests. 

Now let us look back over what we have been doing, 
and we shall see that, in developing the argument, we 
have formed it into a complete syllogism. As devel- 
oped, it is thus : " Whatever exhibits marks of design 
has an intelligent author. The world exhibits marks 
of design. Therefore, it has an intelligent author." 
This is a complete syllogism. The first sentence is the 
major premiss; the second, the minor; and the third, 
is the conclusion. The minor premiss was expressed 
in the argument as we first stated it; but the major 
was not. When we denied the truth of the argument, 
we found, that in order to sustain it, we must adduce 
other evidence than was expressed, and the other evi- 
dence is the major premiss of the syllogism. The 
mind then, must have contemplated this major pre- 
miss; else, it came to the conclusion upon insufficient 
evidence. In fact, the major premiss is implied in the 
minor; as it must always be: and therefore, the mind 
must of necessity have contemplated it. The argu- 
9 



VS THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ment as we first stated it, is the form in which we 
generally speak or write our arguments ; for we never 
express all the evidence which passes before the mind 
in argumentation, but use expressions which imply the 
truth of what is considered evident. When, therefore, 
we wish to analyze and delineate the process which 
takes place in reasoning, we must consider every step 
of the argument — take hold of the attenuated clew, 
and pass along all the most winding and intricate 
passages of the mental labyrinth, and find out what is 
not usually expressed. If we do this with any argu- 
ment whatever, and add to it all that is understood, it 
will then be a syllogism, or series of syllogisms. The 
very argument by which we have endeavored to estab- 
lish the point under consideration, may be formed into 
a series of syllogisms by merely supplying what is 
understood. 

As we have established the point, that every argu- 
ment, when stated in full and in logical order, is a 
syllogism, or a series of syllogisms, we will next ascer- 
tain what are the acts of the mind, which take place 
in the syllogism, as we shall thus ascertain what are 
the acts of the mind which take place in reasoning. 

The fundamental principles of the syllogism are: 
first, if two terms agree- with one and the same third 
term, they agree with each other; secondly, if one 
term agrees and another disagrees with one and the 
same third term, these two disagree with each other. 
On the former of these principles, rests the validity of 
affirmative conclusions; on the latter, of negative. In 
the argument above, to prove that the world has an 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 99 

intelligent author, we found out a third term, with 
which both the subject and predicate of the proposi- 
tion agree, which third term is, " whatever exhibits 
marks of design." Because if both the subject and the 
predicate of the proposition agree with this third term, 
they agree with each other. We see, then, that in 
every affirmative syllogism there are three agreements. 
The major and minor terms agree with the middle 
term, and they therefore agree with each other. And 
that in every negative syllogism, there are two dis- 
agreements. Either the major or minor term agrees 
with the middle term, and the other disagrees with it, 
and they therefore disagree with each other. Now, 
how are agreements and disagreements ascertained? 
Why, by comparison. The acts of the mind, there- 
fore, which take place in the syllogism, are a com- 
parison of two terms with a third, and if they agree 
with it, then an inference that they agree with each 
other ; and if either of them agrees, and the other dis- 
agrees with the third term, then an inference that 
they disagree with each other. All reasoning, there- 
fore, proceeds by comparison. We have exhibited this 
point, because we frequently meet with expressions, in 
the best writers upon logic and metaphysics, and also 
in the writings of all classes of authors, which imply 
that all reasoning is not by comparison : and also 
because w T e have seen some able writers running to 
the opposite extreme, and confounding the simple act 
of comparison with the reasoning process, which, as we 
have shown, consists of several acts of comparison and 
an inference from them. 



100 TLIE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

We will now, for the purpose of enquiring more 
minutely into the nature of the reasoning process, take 
a syllogism to pieces, and examine its parts, so as to 
ascertain their nature and their mutual relations to 
each other. 

The syllogism is composed of three propositions, 
two of which are the premises, and the other is the 
conclusion. For example, in the syllogism which we 
have been using all along, the proposition, "Whatever 
has marks of design has an intelligent author/' is the 
major premiss ; the proposition, " The world exhibits 
marks of design," is the minor premiss; and the pro- 
position, "The world, therefore, has an intelligent 
author," is the conclusion. It is upon the mutual 
relations existing between these propositions, and upon 
the mutual relations existing between their respective 
parts, that all the rules of Logic are founded. It is 
intuitively manifest, that both the minor premiss and 
the conclusion, are embraced in the major premiss, as 
parts of a whole. If the major and minor propositions 
be granted, the conclusion must necessarily follow, 
indeed the truth of the conclusion is assumed in them. 
When, therefore, we assert the truth of the major and 
minor premises, we virtually assert the truth of the 
conclusion also. We see, then, that in every argu- 
ment, the conclusion is contained or assumed in the 
premises, and that the conclusion is not a different 
truth from the premises, but is one of the truths con- 
tained or assumed in the major premiss, which is noth- 
ing more than a general truth, of which the conclusion 
is a particular instance. When, therefore, we draw a 



THE BACONIAN, PHILOSOPHY. 101 

conclusion, we do not, strictly speaking, ascertain a 
new truth, but merely develop in a particular instance, 
a general truth known to us before. The great general 
principle which governs these mutual relations exist- 
ing between the premises and conclusion, is the funda- 
mental principle of Logic, and is called in scholastic 
language the "Dictum de omnl et nullo" of Aristotle. 
It is this: " Whatever may be predicated (affirmed or 
denied) universally of any class, may be predicated 
(affirmed or denied) in like manner of anything com- 
prehended in that class. " The application of this 
principle to the major premiss, as comprehending the 
minor and the conclusion, is obvious : for if it can be 
affirmed universally of the class of things exhibiting 
marks of design, that they have an intelligent author, 
it can necessarily be affirmed so of the world, if it be 
one of the things comprehended in that class. This 
maxim may be called the formula of demonstration, a 
general argument, of which every other is a particular 
instance. And the man who violates it in argumenta- 
tion, is to the eye of enlightened reason, guilty of as 
gross an absurdity as he who attempts to raise himself 
over a fence by the straps of his boots. 

We have now given an outline of the Logic taught 
by Aristotle in his Organum : and will next introduce 
to our readers the Method of Investigation taught by 
Bacon in his Novum Organum. 

From the expressions quoted at the beginning of 

our analysis of the reasoning process, and from many 

such that are found in the best writers of every class, 

one might suppose that Lord Bacon had taught a new 

9* 



102 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

mode of reasoning; and that this Novum Organum 
was designed to supersed altogether the Organum of 
Aristotle. This is an entire misconception of the 
whole subject. (The design of the Novum Organum 
was not to teach a new mode of reasoning; but to 
teach a new method of investigation.; The Novum 
Organum has, therefore, a very different province 
from that of the Organum of Aristotle. The province 
of the latter is to analyze the process of the mind 
which takes place in reasoning; and to furnish a 
model to which sound reasoning may be reduced and 
by which the correctness of every argument may be 
tested, in its conformity to the model ; and to furnish 
rules relative to the whole matter, as we may have 
shown. 

But the Logic of Aristotle was supposed by its 
author and the other Greek philosophers to be an 
instrument of much more importance in the investi- 
gation of truth, than it really is, and was therefore 
applied to the investigation of the sciences, and is 
called the a priori Method of Investigation, and it is 
as a method of investigation, that the Novum Organum 
is designed to supersede the Organum of Aristotle, as 
we will now proceed to show. 

The Greeks were an astute and exceedingly dis- 
putatious people, inordinately fond of dialectical dis- 
quisitions; and it was in this spirit that the Greek 
philosophers conceived that the reasoning process was 
the chief process in the investigation of the sciences, 
or, in other words, that the a priori was the true 
method of investigation. And it was at a period in 



THE. BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 103 

the history of Greece when her philosophers were 
wholly given up to abstract studies, that Aristotle's 
Organum had its origin ; and it may be considered as 
a systematical development of the method of investi- 
gation pursued by the Greek philosophers, who carried 
the a priori Method of Investigation which had proved 
so successful in mathematical inquiries to which it is 
adapted, into physical and metaphysical inquiries, sup- 
posing that as in the mathematics, so in physics and 
metaphysics, everything can be reasoned out from a 
few simple notions or principles. And in accordance 
with this opinion, the Greek philosophers were always 
endeavoring to find out these simple principles in 
nature which they supposed would be productive of 
such rich results in science. In psychology, we find 
some maintaining the doctrine of innate general ideas 
or principles from which not only all metaphysical but 
all physical truths also were to be reasoned out; and 
in physics, we find one making water, another the 
infinitude of things, a third, air, and at last Aristotle, 
making form and privation, combined with matter, the 
principles of all things : and though Aristotle did not 
maintain that these simple notions or principles were 
an innate knowledge of the mind, yet he seemed to 
think that they might be recognized affirmatively at 
the first glance of contemplation of an instance fur- 
nished through sensation, and that, therefore, the chief 
process, in the acquisition of truth, is in deducing con- 
clusions from principles, and not in ascertaining prin- 
ciples. And these miserable abstractions were the 
clews by which the labyrinths of nature's secret places 



101 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

were to be passed through, and the truths of physics 
and metaphysics ascertained by reasoning from them. 
This misapplication of Logic as a method of investi- 
gation could not but lead to error. For Logic does 
not guarantee the truth of the premises of an argu- 
ment, unless they are conclusions from previous argu- 
ments, but always proceeds upon the hypothetical truth 
of the premises. It merely guarantees the truth of 
the conclusion, as an inference from the premises; its 
province, as we have shown, being to deduce conclu- 
sions from admitted premises. Its tendency, there- 
fore, is to make us overlook the truth of the premises ; 
as it furnishes no rule in regard to their truth but 
merely in regard to the truth of the conclusion as an 
inference from them. And this is the very evil which 
it produced. 

This misapplication of Logic as a method of inves- 
tigation, led inevitably to the most absurd theories in 
physical science imaginable. As an example, we will 
cite Aristotle's argument in proof of the immutability 
and incorruptibility of the heavens, as it is exhibited 
by Galileo. 

" 1st. Mutation is either generation or corruption." 
" 2d. Generation and corruption only happen be- 
tween contraries." 

"3d. The motion of contraries is contrary." 
"4th. The celestial motions are circular." 
" 5th. Circular motions have no contraries." 
"A. Because there can be but three simple motions." 
"1st. To a centre." 
" 2d. Round a centre " 
" 3d. From a centre." 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 105 

"B. Of three things, only one can be contrary to 
one." 

" G. But a motion to a centre is manifestly the con- 
trary to a motion from a centre." 

"D. Therefore, a motion round a centre (i. e. circu- 
lar motion,) remains without a contrary." 

" 6th. Therefore, celestial motions have no contra- 
ries; therefore, among celestial things there are 
no contraries; therefore, the heavens are eter- 
nal, immutable, incorruptible, and so forth." 

Such is a striking example of both the method and 
the results of the ancient mode of philosophizing. In 
it are exhibited a total disregard of facts and phenom- 
ena and a pompous and conceited affectation of system, 
which admirably illustrates the intellectual pride and 
vanity of the Greek philosophers, who paid no regard 
to their premises, as facts founded in nature ; but vainly 
hoped to rear up a system of natural philosophy cor- 
responding with the indications of nature, merely by 
deducing conclusions from assumed premises not ascer- 
tained by observing nature, but purely the fictions of 
their own imaginations. And to just as gross absurd- 
ities were the Greek philosophers led in mental phil- 
osophy, by their disregard of facts and phenomena, as 
they were in physical. We will cite as an example, 
the doctrine of sensation, or the mode in which the 
mind perceives objects as taught in the Peripatetic 
school. A kind of images, or sensible species as they 
were called, were supposed to come off from all objects 
and to pass to our different organs of sense, and were 
by them admitted to the nerves, and through them 



106 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

conveyed to the brain, where they were impressed as 
the engraving of a seal on wax, and were then refined 
into intellectual species, after the mind fully appre- 
hended them. We might cite many other examples of 
like absurdity ; but our object is merely to illustrate 
the point under consideration. 

The Logic and philosophy of Aristotle obtained the 
greatest favor at Rome under the Caesars. At an early 
period however, in the Christian world, Plato had dis- 
placed Aristotle, and his continued the most generally 
received philosophy until the close of the fifth century, 
when the influence of Aristotle began to prevail again, 
and though it declined a little during the sixth cen- 
tury, at the close of the seventh it was everywhere tri- 
umphant throughout the civilized portions of Europe, 
Asia and Africa. Christians, Jews and Mahometans 
bowed before his authority. Commentaries, para- 
phrases, summaries and dissertations on his works 
were composed without number in both Arabic and 
Latin. His works were appealed to in all disputes as 
infallible authority : and none dared dissent from the 
" Great Master." During this period, the study of 
nature was still more neglected than it had been by 
the Greeks. Mere abstractions, figments of the mind, 
usurped the place of even the few facts contained in 
the Greek philosophy. Men's minds were in a con- 
tinual ferment about occult qualities and essences — 
about proportion, degree, infinity, formality, and innu- 
merable other abstractions; and such was the height 
to which controversy ran about these chimeras of the 
mind, that it often resulted in bloodshed, and well-nigh 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 107 

convulsed kingdoms. Every one seemed to think that, 
" the chief end of man, is to contradict his neighbor, 
and to wrangle frith him forever." The different par- 
ties had their rival chiefs decked out in all the titles of 
philosophical heraldry, such as "the invincible/' "the 
most profound," " the angelical," " the irrefragible 
doctor," to lead them on to the wordy war. And now 
the most absurd notions were worked up into systems 
of philosophy. As the great master Aristotle had 
taught, as we have shown, that a uniform circular 
motion was the only motion consistent with the per- 
fection of the heavenly mechanism, this notion was 
worked up into a most unwieldy and complicated 
theory of astronomy, exhibiting the sun, moon and 
planets revolving in circles, whose centres w T ere carried 
round in other circles, and these again in others, and so 
on without end — "cycle upon epicycle, orb on orb," 
throughout the infinitude of space. But a still more 
absurd astronomical theory was gravely presented to 
the world in the sixth century by Cosmas Indopleustes, 
who maintained, says Maclaurin in his account of Sir 
Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries, that " the 
earth was not globular but an immense plane of a 
greater length than breadth, environed by an impass- 
able ocean. He placed a huge mountain tow r ards the 
north, around which the sun and stars performed their 
diurnal revolutions; and from the conical shape which 
he ascribed to it, with the oblique motion of the sun, 
he accounted for the inequality of the days and the 
variation of the seasons. The vault of Heaven leaned 
upon the earth extended beyond the ocean, being like- 



108 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

wise supported by two vast columns; beneath the 
arch, angels conducted the stars in their various 
motions. Above it were the celestial waters, and 
above all he placed the supreme heavens." Such 
then was the state of knowledge produced by im- 
plicitly obeying authority, and following the ancient 
method of philosophizing, of endeavoring to deduce 
systems of philosophy from a few imaginary princi- 
ples — of misapplying Logic as a method of inves- 
tigation. 

It was during this state of knowledge, though light 
had begun to break in upon the darkness, that Lord 
Bacon was born. {^While yet a student at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, he discerned the vagueness and 
inutility of the existing state of knowledge; and as 
he advanced in age, he saw the more clearly the utter 
worthlcssness of all the reigning speculations of the 
day ; for, there being no connection whatever between 
them and the arts, they did not minister at all to the 
comforts of man, or arm him with any power over 
nature. As this great genius meditated upon the 
immense growth of pernicious error which had sprung 
up in every province of knowledge, he plainly saw 
that it was in a great measure the product of the 
extensive influence which Aristotle possessed in the 
schools, diverting the minds of men from the study of 
nature to the study of his doctrines and that the 
authority of Aristotle must be overthrown before man 
could be brought back into the true paths of science. 
For although the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler 
and Galileo had in some degree broken the magic spell 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 109 

of the enchanter of Stagira, it remained for a genius of 
a loftier tone to show its delusion and folly by point- 
ing out its nature, and to rouse up the minds of men 
from slavish obedience to authority, by pouring into 
them the quickening influences of his own free spirit. 
All this Bacon designed to accomplish by his Instau- 
ration of the Sciences, and to lead men back into the 
true paths of science, from which they had so long 
wandered. 

The Instauration of the Sciences, was designed by 
Bacon to consist of six parts : but as he wrote but lit- 
tle of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth parts, we will 
say nothing of them. The first part is the Advance- 
ment of Learning, in which he sketches out all the 
departments of knowledge and defines their limits, 
and shows the degree of cultivation in each. In con- 
cluding this part of his great work, he says, "thus 
have I made, as it were, a small globe of the intellec- 
tual world as truly and faithfully as I could discover, 
with a note and description of those parts which seem 
to me not constantly occupate or well converted by the 
labor of man." 

The second part of the Instauration of the Sciences 
is the Novum Organum, which it is our object now to 
illustrate. As, in the Advancement of Learning, Ba- 
con sketched a map of the sciences, in the Novum 
Organum, he develops the method by which they are 
to be investigated. He here proclaims the great truth, 
and develops it, that the knowledge of the philosopher 
does not differ in kind but only in degree, from that 
of the peasant — that the whole of philosophy is founded 
10 



110 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

on observation, and is nothing more than a classifica- 
tion of facts and phenomena presented in nature, rising 
first, from particulars, to classifications of the lowest 
degree of comprehension, and then from these, to those 
of a higher degree, and so on, until we arrive at clas- 
sifications of the highest degree comprehending all the 
subordinate classification. And that these classifica- 
tions are the only true general conceptions, as they 
are the only ones which have anything corresponding 
to them in nature; and that the ideas or forms of 
Plato, and the empirical general conceptions of Aris- 
totle have no counterparts in nature, but are the 
mere fictions of their own imaginations, and, there- 
fore, are not a proper foundation of science. In a 
word, he declared that all philosophy is written in 
the book of nature, the mat-era! and spiritual worlds. 
He set forth this great truth in the very first proposi- 
tion of the Novum Organ um. "Man, as the servant 
and interpreter of nature, does and understands as 
much as his observations on the order of nature, either 
with regard to things or the mind, permit him, and 
neither knows nor is capable of more." The spirit of 
this philosophy is humility. It teaches that in order 
to become philosophers truly so called, men must cast 
off that intellectual pride which vainly strives to find 
out the secrets of nature by mere reasoning and become 
as children, reading in humility the simplest lessons in 
the book of nature. " The access to the kingdom of 
man which is founded on the sciences," says Bacon, 
"resembles that to the kingdom of Heaven, where 
no admission is conceded except to children." Noble 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

and sagacious comparison ! With what philosophic 
forecast does it portray the spirit of true philosophy ! 
For, as those who recognize the doctrine of humility 
in divine truth, have planted, upon the strongest for- 
tresses of paganism, the white banner of Christianity, 
with the lonely star of Bethlehem shedding its mild 
beams from its ample folds as it waves over the wor- 
worshippers of the true God, so those who recognize it 
in human truth, have pushed their conquests into 
every province of nature, and even scaled the very 
Heavens, and planted the standard of the Baconian 
philosophy upon the remotest star, demonstrating by 
their success that the humbling precept, " become as 
little children," is as true in philosophy as in religion. 
It is obedience to this precept which confers on man 
all his power over nature — gives him access to the 
kingdom founded on the sciences. 
/ The method of investigation, according to this view 
of philosophy, proposed by Bacon in his Novum Or- 
ganum, he calls Induction, which means "a bringing 
in," because it proposes to bring into philosophical 
investigations facts diligently sought out in nature, and 
after carefully examining them in all possible lights, to 
educe some general principle from them which they 
clearly indicate. The development of this method, by 
showing its nature and efficiency, and exposing the 
sources of error in philosophical investigations and 
laying down precepts for conducting them right, so as 
to enable the humble and sincere inquirer to guard 
against error, constitute the Novum Organum. Such, 
then, is the remedy which Bacon proposed for rectify- 



112 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ing the evils of the ancient philosophy, and for ena- 
bling man to establish a true practical philosophy that 
would extend his empire over all the dominions of 
nature. He sketched a chart to guide the humble 
voyager on the vast ocean of knowledge, and erected 
beacons to w 7 arn him where his barque might be 
stranded. 

It is evident, from this view of the subject, that the 
Novum Organ um was not designed to teach a new 
mode of reasoning, and thus to supercede the Organ urn 
of Aristotle in its legitimate province of analyzing the 
process of reasoning, and exhibiting rules for conduct- 
ing it aright: but merely to supercede it as an instru- 
ment of investigation in the sciences, to which it had 
been misapplied both by its author and his followers, 
especially those of modern times. The Novum Orga- 
num is not in fact a treatise on logic at all, but rather 
a treatise on evidence, for it treats more particularly 
of premises than of conclusions, and the premises are 
the evidence which prove the conclusion of an argu- 
ment; for when w T e set out with a conclusion, which 
is then called a proposition, the evidence which we 
adduce to prove it would constitute the premises, if 
we set out with the premises, in order to deduce the 
conclusion from them. Lord Bacon, after surveying 
the whole of ancient philosophy, saw that it was not 
sustained by legitimate evidence — that the premises (so 
to speak) of the arguments were either plainly false, or 
mere assumptions not proved; and he proposed in his 
Novum Organum, that men should examine facts and 
phenomena (the only legitimate evidence,) before they 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 113 

form theories — interpret nature and have legitimate 
premises, before they deduce conclusions. He did not 
design to show that their conclusions were not logically 
deduced from their premises, or that the syllogistic 
rules laid down by Aristotle for conducting this pro- 
cess were erroneous. 

But if Bacon did design to teach a new mode of 
reasoning, he has signally failed of his purpose, for 
we have shown that the syllogism is the process which 
must take place in all correct reasoning; and we will 
now proceed to show that Induction is a very different 
process, and not a process of reasoning at all. What 
is Induction? It may be defined, a process of inves- 
tigation and of collecting facts and phenomena, either 
with or without a view, to establish some general prin- 
ciple already suggested to the mind. It is manifest 
that the mere investigation and collection of facts and 
phenomena without a view to establish some general 
principle already suggested to the mind, is not a rea- 
soning process. It, therefore, only remains to examine 
the other, the investigation and collection of facts and 
phenomena ivith a view to establish some general prin- 
ciple already suggested to the mind. In this last case, 
the investigation and collection of facts and phenomena 
is conducted on the supposition or presumption of the 
existence of a general principle or law, and is directed 
with a view to establish it, by the examination of a 
sufficient number of facts and phenomena. For ex- 
ample: A naturalist, after seeing for the first time, a 
duck or any other water-fowl, might be led to infer 
that all water-fowl have web-feet, and might, there- 
10* 



114 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

fore, proceed to search for other water-fowl until he 
found the goose, the pelican, the swan, &c., and would 
then be convinced of the truth of the general princi- 
ple, that all water-fowl have web-feet. Now, this is 
certainly not a process of reasoning, for it is conducted 
upon the supposition or presumption merely of the 
existence of the law or general principle, and not upon 
the absolute certainty of its existence, for it would 
then not be investigation, but demonstration or rea- 
soning from known premises to something taken for 
granted in those premises, as we have shown reasoning 
always to be. The inductive process is not governed 
by principles of logic, but by principles of evidence. 
For instance: In the example above, the naturalist 
supposed from the fact, that one water-fowl, the duck, 
has web-feet, that all water-fowl have web-feet. Now, 
this is evidently a mere supposition from testimony 
not sufficient to convince the naturalist; he, therefore, 
searches for other water-fowl (other testimony) and 
finds the goose, the pelican, the swan, &c, and is con- 
vinced, by this accumulated testimony of the general 
principle, that all water-fowl have web-feet. The 
mental determination is effected by testimony and not 
by rules of logic. The conclusion is not implied in 
the very conception of the premises, as is always the 
case in reasoning, but it is warranted by the proba- 
bilities founded in the analogies of nature and in the 
constitution of the human mind. The inference is 
founded upon material relations and not upon logical. 
The conclusion is probable, but not necessarily certain, 
as is always the case in logic, for logic never proves 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 115 

with any but the highest degree of certainty, the infer- 
ence being never deduced from probabilities, but neces- 
sitated by the very laws of thought. The relation 
between the premises of an argument and the conclu- 
sion is that of reason and consequent; and the material 
relations of the objects expressed by the terms have 
nothing to do with the inference of the one from the 
others; for in reasoning, the inference is effected, vi 
termini et rationis, and not vi mater ice. And reasoning 
always proceeds from a class to a particular, or from a 
class of greater comprehension, to one of less ; and 
every class is established by induction ; to make a 
class, then, a prerequisite of induction, as we must do, 
if we make induction, reasoning would be absurd, for 
every induction would then be the result of some 
previous induction, and it would make our highest 
abstractions or generalizations the first in order of 
time in the acquisition of knowledge, which is a 
psychological doctrine that is repudiated by the whole 
Baconian philosophy; as will be seen in the next 
chapter. 

It is manifest, we think, from this analysis, that 
induction is the reverse of the syllogism. Induction 
proceeds from particulars to a class of low degree, and 
from several classes of a low degree to those of a 
higher, until we arrive at those of the highest degree. 
On the contrary, syllogism proceeds from classes of 
the highest degree to those of a lower, and from those 
of the lowest degree to particulars. The two together 
constitute one complete system of processes by which 
knowledge is acquired and perfected. For very often 



116 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY". 

we cannot be satisfied that we have arrived at a correct 
inductive conclusion or statement of a law of nature, 
until we make such conclusion or law a ground of 
argument, and show by strict reasoning that the phe- 
nomena observed are consequences of it. For exam- 
ple : in reasoning from the law of gravity, we discover, 
by the application of the general laws of dynamics, 
that all the planets must attract each other, and, there- 
fore, draw each other out of the orbits in which they 
would have moved, if acted upon by the sun only, 
and thus circumstances are discovered by which our 
general conclusion is strengthened, and which could 
not have been discovered otherwise, as it required 
some such conclusion which could only be obtained by 
strict reasoning, to direct attention to such minute 
inquiries, and a correct theory is thus obtained. This 
use of reasoning in inductive inquiries will be more 
particularly explained in the sequel, when we speak of 
the application of mathematics to physical inquiries. 

In further illustration of the nature of induction, 
we will now inquire into the nature of the methods of 
Analysis and Synthesis. 

We frequently see Analysis called the inductive pro- 
cess and Synthesis called the hypothetical process, 
the process of the ancients. This is very erroneous. 
Synthesis is just as much of an inductive process as 
analysis, and is, in fact, more extensively used by the 
Baconian philosophers than analysis. Analysis and 
synthesis are terms derived from the ancient Greek 
geometricians, and are of quite a different nature in 
the mathematics from what thev are in other sciences. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 117 

In mathematics synthesis is just the reverse of analy- 
sis; but it is not so in the sciences of contingent truth. 
In these, analysis is the process of investigation by 
observation and experiment, and synthesis is the pro- 
cess of explaining other phenomena by means of the 
general fact or law ascertained by analysis. Synthesis 
is just as much of a process of investigation as analysis, 
and is more frequently used as such. For we are fre- 
quently led to an inference analytically, without our 
induction of facts being sufficiently extensive to satisfy 
us; we, therefore, bring to our aid synthetically facts 
which we had not before examined. At the time we 
are explaining facts synthetically we are establishing 
the inference which we derived analytically, because, if 
the inference will explain the facts the facts will, of 
course, support the inference. Analysis and synthesis 
are, therefore, both processes of induction, for, by both 
of them, we enlarge the number of our facts. Indeed, 
most of the discoveries in the inductive philosophy 
have been made chiefly by synthesis. The phenome- 
non of the rainbow was explained by it. Sir Isaac 
Newton, by experiment with the prysmatic spectrum, 
discovered that light is composed of seven rays, of dif- 
ferent colors, and of different degrees of refrangibility. 
By this fact, thus analytically established, he explained 
the phenomenon of the rainbow synthetically, and the 
phenomenon thus explained establishes the fact that 
light is composed of seven rays of different colors and 
different degrees of refrangibility. The phenomenon 
of the rainbow could never have been explained ana- 
alytically. We might have looked at it forever, and 



118 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

would still be unable to explain its cause from mere 
observation, no matter how minute. The science of 
astronomy has been reared chiefly by synthesis. New- 
ton, from an examination of the phenomena of motion 
on the earth, inferred the principle of gravity, and by 
the principle of gravity, thus analytically ascertained, 
he explained synthetically the phenomena of the whole 
solar system. It would have been impossible ever to 
have explained these phenomena by analysis. In the 
preface to his Principia, Newton says : U A11 the diffi- 
culty of philosophy seems to consist in this : from the 
phenomena of motions, to investigate the forces of 
nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the 
other phenomena; and to this end the general proposi- 
tions in the first and second books are directed. In 
the third book we give an example of this, in explana- 
tion of the system of the world, for, by the proposi- 
tions, mathematically demonstrated, in the first book, 
we then derive from the celestial phenomena the forces 
of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the 
several planets. Then, from these forces, by other 
propositions, which are also mathematical, we deduce 
the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon and 
the sea." Now, this is an outline of the method of 
investigation pursued in the Principia, given by New- 
ton himself, and we see that synthesis is much more 
extensively used than analysis. Analysis was em- 
ployed in the first step of the investigation — "from 
the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of 
nature." The demonstration of the other phenomena 
from these forces is by synthesis, and constitutes the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 119 

great portion of the immortal work. The copy of the 
Principia which we have before us was edited by that 
distinguished mathematician Roger Cotes. In his pre- 
face to the work, in speaking of those who profess 
experimental philosophy, he says: "They, therefore, 
proceed in a twofold method, synthetical and analyti- 
cal. From select phenomena they deduce, by analysis, 
the forces of nature and the more simple laws of 
forces, and from thence, by synthesis, show the consti- 
tution of the rest. This is that incomparably best 
way of philosophising which our renowned author 
most justly embraced before the rest, and thought 
alone worthy to be cultivated and adorned by his 
excellent labors. Of this he has given us a most 
illustrious example by the explication of the system of 
the world, most happily deduced from the theory of 
gravity." We might adduce innumerable other exam- 
ples; indeed, we might bring forward the whole of 
science in illustration of our position, but we have 
sufficiently exemplified it; for, after showing that the 
greatest monument of which the inductive philosophy 
can boast was reared chiefly by synthesis — that much 
the largest induction of facts was made by this pro- 
cess, it is unnecessary to dwell longer on examples. 
Perhaps it may be objected to this last example that 
w T e are confounding, by citing it, the distinction which 
w r e have made between synthesis and analysis in the 
mathematics and the sciences of contingent truth. A 
little reflection will remove this objection. 

The application of mathematics to the sciences of 
contingent truth, does not take them out of the pale 



120 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

of induction ; because the whole object of such appli- 
cation is to explain the phenomena, by comparing the 
results of the demonstrations from the assumed data 
with observed facts, and thereby ascertaining from the 
agreement or disagreement of the results of the demon- 
strations with observed facts, whether the data or prin- 
ciple inferred by analysis, upon which the demonstra- 
tions are based, be true or false. An appeal must be 
made to experience, in every particular instance of the 
application of mathematics to natural philosophy, to 
see whether the results of the demonstration corres- 
pond with observed phenomena, no matter how well 
established the general principles of the particular 
science may be considered ; for it is in this way only 
that mathematics gives certainty to theories in natural 
philosophy, or in other words, strengthens our induc- 
tive conclusions • because until we ascertain that such 
phenomena do exist as the demonstrations show to be 
necessary consequences of the assumed principle, we 
cannot be sure of the truth of the principle. For 
example : when demonstration showed that if the prin- 
ciple of gravity be true, there must exist certain ine- 
qualities and deviations in the motions of the planets, 
produced by their mutual action upon each other, 
drawing each other out of the orbits they would have 
moved in if acted upon only by the sun, we could not 
be certain of the truth of the principle of gravity 
until we ascertained that these phenomena did really 
exist; and then the principle would explain the phe- 
nomena, and the phenomena support the principle. 
Both the analytical and synthetical processes of indue- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 121 

tion then, are aided by the application of mathematics. 
Though, in testing the truth of the conclusion or prin- 
ciple arrived at by the analytical process of induction 
by applying mathematics to it, you must assume the 
truth of the conclusion or principle, and then deduce 
from it, the phenomena from which the conclusion has 
been inferred. And thus it is apparent, that the an- 
alytical process is aided by the application of mathe- 
matics, in the very same way that the synthetical 
process is: for in applying the mathematics to aid the 
synthetical process, you must assume the truth of the 
conclusion or principle arrived at by analysis, and 
deduce from it, the phenomena which you are seeking 
to explain by that conclusion or principle, and in this 
way prove the analytical conclusion by these phenom- 
ena thus synthetically explained, and show that they 
belonged to the same class with those from which the 
analytical conclusion was inferred. And both processes 
w 7 ill thus result in proving the general principle in- 
ferred in the analytical process. This application of 
mathematics in aid of the inductive process is spoken 
of by Bacon in the ninety-sixth aphorism of the 
second book of the Novum Organum, where he says, 
" that mathematics ought rather to terminate natural 
philosophy than to generate or create it." 

Let it not, then, be said that analysis is the inductive 
process, and synthesis the ancient. They are not pro- 
cesses of reasoning; for they both are conducted on 
the supposition or presumption merely of the existence 
of a law or general principle, and are directed with a 
view to establish it, by the examination of a sufficient 
11 



122 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

number of facts: and not on the absolute certainty of 
the existence of the law or principle, which is the case 
in reasoning. They are the processes by which we 
acquire all our knowledge of philosophy; and the two 
together constitute what is meant by induction in its 
largest sense. For example : something suggests a 
general principle or law; we then try whether it is 
sustained by other facts, or, which is the same thing, 
whether it will explain other phenomena of the same 
kind. The first step is analytical, the last synthetical ; 
and the whole is induction ; and the whole series of 
inductions by which the sciences have been reared, 
were of this nature — conclusions from a few instances 
proved by trial upon many ; and while we have been 
explaining the nature of analysis and synthesis, we 
have been explaining the nature of induction. This 
view of induction is taken by Bacon himself in the 
one hundred and third aphorism of the first book of 
the Novum Organum. Speaking of the mere examina- 
tion of particulars, he says, " comparatively insignifi- 
cant results are to be expected from thence, whilst the 
more important are to be derived from the new light 
of axioms, deduced by certain method and rule from 
the above particulars, and pointing out and defining 
new particulars in their turn. Our road is not along 
a plain, but rises and falls, ascending to axioms, and 
descending to effects." It is obvious, that the terms 
ascending and descending describe what are now called 
the analytical and synthetical processes; and it would 
perhaps be better, if the terms analysis and synthesis 
were banished from the sciences of contingent truth, 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 123 

and the terms ascending induction and descending 
induction substituted for them, in accordance with the 
phraseology of Bacon ; because there is not the same 
difference between the terms analysis and synthesis in 
the sciences of contingent truth, that there is between 
them in the mathematics, and the retention of them is 
therefore calculated to mislead. As methods of instruc- 
tion in what is already known, they are the reverse of 
each other; and so they would be as methods of inves- 
tigation in all the branches of natural philosophy to 
which mathematics can be applied, if all the phenom- 
ena were known, and the mathematics were perfect, so 
as to render these branches of natural philosophy as 
much a matter of strict reasoning as geometry. 

As we have shown that induction is carried on by 
principles of evidence and not by principles of logic, 
we will offer some reflections upon philosophical evi- 
dence; and develop induction further than Bacon did, 
and give it a more systematic form. 

We frequently see Analogy spoken of in the best 
writers as a fallacious sort of evidence, that ought not 
to be admitted into the inductive philosophy.* This 
is very erroneous; for analogy is true inductive evi- 
dence. What we mean by inductive evidence, is evi- 
dence founded in the constitution of nature — real 
evidence, as opposed to mere hypothesis. And what 
we mean by evidence, is whatever is clothed by nature 
with the power of producing conviction in our minds, 
when it is fully apprehended, even in spite of our- 

*F«>r a 1 borough discus-ion of analogy, see my " Progress of Philosophy 
in the Past and in the Future." 2d Edition, pp. 171, 172. 



124 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

selves. As to the first point, that analogy has a real 
foundation in nature, no one can object; for we can 
trace it everywhere. And as to the other point, 
whether it is clothed by nature with power to produce 
conviction in our minds solid enough to be the founda- 
tion of sound inductive inferences, we think there will 
be as little objection, after diligent inquiry into the 
matter. The conviction produced by analogy between 
facts or phenomena, has the very same foundation that 
the conviction of the existence of the most familiar 
object has. They are both founded in our mental con- 
stitution, on what is called by metaphysicians, funda- 
mental laws of belief. If we see an object we cannot 
but believe in its existence: so if we perceive an 
analogy between phenomena, we cannot but believe 
that they are produced by a similar or common cause. 
But why the conviction is produced in either case, is 
not known to us, and never can be in this state of 
existence. It is beyond the boundaries of philosophy. 
Having laid this foundation, we will now proceed to 
show the importance of analogical evidence, and also 
to exhibit its nature, and finally, to indicate the gen- 
eral principle by which our estimate of its force is to 
be regulated. 

There is no science whatever in which analogical 
evidence is not of great importance. In medicine, a 
remedy is frequently suggested in one disease from its 
having been efficacious in an analogous disease. In 
anatomy also it is of much importance. One of the 
noblest monuments of human reason is the osteology 
of Baron Couvier ; and this has been reared almost 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 125 

exclusively upon analogy. In moral science also it 
lias its monuments. The ablest defence of Christi- 
anity that lias ever been submitted to the world is 
founded altogether upon analogy. We mean the work 
of Bishop Butler — a work that has done more to make 
plain the ways of providence in the moral economy of 
the world than almost any other human production. 
This work alone is sufficient to entitle analogy to the 
character of admissible evidence in philosophy, for if 
it be admissible in one science, it must be admissible in 
all, as it must have the same relative strength in all. 
But we will not confine ourselves to general proposi- 
tions, but will select instances in which analogical evi- 
dence has been the foundation of discoveries in natural 
philosophy, as the best mode of enforcing our views. 

The conjecture of Newton that the diamond is a 
combustible body, which has been always thought to 
evince such marvellous sagacity, was founded upon the 
analogy of its effects upon light to those of other com- 
bustible substances. Kepler having ascertained the 
orbit of Mars about the sun to be an ellipse, having 
the sun in one of its foci, the same law was immedi- 
ately extended by analogy to all the planets, and was 
found in time to hold good in the case of each, and 
when Jupiter's disc and satellites were afterwards dis- 
covered by Galileo, the same law was immediately 
extended by analogy, to this miniature system, and 
found to hold good, and the law was thus found to 
depend on the nature of planetary motion. All of 
which has since been mathematically demonstrated by 
Newton. Here, then, are conclusions from analogy in 
11* 



126 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

reference to the most difficult subjects, demonstrated to 
be correct by the most rigid application of mathemat- 
ics, and the conjecture of Newton about the nature of 
the diamond has been proved to be correct by modern 
chemistry. But perhaps the most beautiful instance of 
the use of analogical evidence within the whole range 
of natural science is to be found in the theory of dew 
by Dr. Wells. It is selected by Sir J. W. F. Herschel 
"as one of the most beautiful specimens of inductive- 
experimental inquiry." And as he has selected it as 
an example of inductive search without regard to the 
kind of evidence on which it rests, we will select it as 
an example of inductive search, conducted upon ana- 
logical evidence, and w r ill give it in the w r ords of Her- 
schel: " Let us now exemplify this inductive search 
for a cause by one general example : suppose dew 7 were 
the phenomenon proposed, whose cause w T e would know. 
In the first place we must separate dew T from rain and 
the moisture of fogs, and limit the application of the 
term to what is really meant, which is, the spontaneous 
appearance of moisture on substances exposed in the 
open air when no rain or visible wet is falling. Now 
here we have analogous phenomena in the moisture 
which bedews a cold metal or stone when we breathe 
upon it; that which appears on a glass of wat^r fresh 
from the well in warm weather; that which appears 
on the inside of windows, when sudden rain or hail 
chills the external air; that which runs down our walls 
when, after a long frost, a warm moist thaw comes on ; 
all these instances agree in one point, the coldness of 
the object dewed in comparison with the air in contact 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 127 

with it. But in the case of the night dew, is this a 
real cause? Is it a fact that the object dewed is colder 
than the air? Certainly not, one would at first be 
inclined to say ; for what is to make it so ? But the 
analogies are cogent and unanimous, and, therefore, we 
are not to discard their indications; and, besides, the 
experiment is easy — we have only to lay a thermome- 
ter in contact with the dewed substance) and hang one 
a little distance above it, out of reach of its influence. 
The experiment has, therefore, been made; the ques- 
tion has been asked, and the answer has invariably 
been in the affirmative. Whenever an object contracts 
dew, it is colder than the air, &c." AVe here see infer- 
ences founded on analogy, proved by actual experi- 
ment, If the example had been written with a view 
to the object for which we have selected it, the lan- 
guage could not have been more expressive of our 
doctrine; could not point out the analogies more 
distinctly. This fact gives great force to it, as an 
illustration of the use of analogical evidence in philo- 
sophical inquiries. But why need we dwell on minor 
examples when, in fact, it was analogical evidence 
which led Newton to break through the fetters of the 
dogma of the ancients that the celestial phenomena are 
in their nature and laws different from the terrestrial, 
and to connect the physics of the earth with that of 
the heavens, and to identify their laws. He discov- 
ered an analogy between the motions of a bomb shot 
from a cannon and the motions of the moon, and was 
thus led to infer that their motions were produced by 
the same cause and regulated by the same laws, and 



128 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

from the analogy between the earth and the other 
planets, he concluded that the motions of their satel- 
lites were produced by the same cause that those of 
the moon were; and, finally, the analogy between the 
motions of the earth and of the other planets around 
the sun, and the motions of the moon around the earth, 
led him to infer that their motions were produced by 
the same cause $ and the application of geometry ena- 
bled him to verify these inferences. Thus we see, 
then, that it was by an induction, founded upon analo- 
gies, that the law of gravity was established. 

It is very important, then, as these examples show, 
to have a number of analogous instances, which class 
themselves with the one under consideration, because 
the explanation of one of them will be apt to lead to 
that of all the others. We may also perceive analo- 
gies between different sciences, and trace them until 
they terminate in some common phenomenon more 
general than that which is the subject of either of them, 
and thus arrive at their common cause. This has been 
the case with electricity, magnetism and galvanism, for 
they have been discovered to be the same, or rather, 
the two last are particular instances of the first, by 
examining their analogies; and it is very probable, 
from the strong analogies existing between the phe- 
nomena of light and sound, that they will at last be 
discovered to originate in a common cause, vibratory 
motion. 

But we need not dwell longer on particular exam- 
ples; for the truth is, all the evidence on which the 
inductive process is conducted, may be divided into 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 129 

analogy and identity, though of course, subordinate 
divisions may be made of these. For example: a 
child that has been burnt by the flame of a candle, 
will expect the same effect from the same cause — to be 
burnt by the same candle. This expectation is founded 
upon identity of evidence. But when the child expects 
the same effect, from a similar cause, as for instance, to 
be burnt by the flame of another candle (though this 
may almost be called the same cause,) or by the flame 
of wood, or gas, or by every flame, the expectation is 
founded upon analogy. Whenever the inference is 
from same to same, it is founded upon identity ; and 
whenever it is from like to like, however great the like- 
ness, it is founded upon analogy. We see then, that 
Induction beginning with the simplest classifications 
is founded upon analogy. As long as the subject of 
investigation is merely probable, no matter how great 
the probability, the process is founded upon analogy. 
For example : in the case of the theory of dew, which 
we cited, the whole process was founded upon analogy, 
until it was ascertained by experiment with the ther- 
mometer, that cold was the cause. And so in every 
other science, we must proceed upon analogous in- 
stances, until we arrive at a common cause: and it has 
been done in every science from astronomy to chem- 
istry. By analogy, the philosopher can push his 
enquiries to the utmost verge of reasonable supposi- 
tion. For example: we can with great probability 
infer that those stars, which have disappeared from the 
firmament, have been consumed by fire, from the 
analogy of the appearances exhibited by them to a 



130 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

great conflagration. The stars at first appeared of a 
dazzling white, then of a reddish yellow, and lastly of 
an ashy paleness until their light expired. " As to 
those stars," says La Place, " which suddenly shine 
forth with a vivid light, and then immediately disap- 
pear, it is extremely probable, that great conflagrations 
produced by extraordinary causes take place on their 
surface. This conjecture is confirmed by their change of 
color, which is analogous to that presented to us on the 
earth, by those bodies, which are set on fire, and then 
gradually extinguished." The analogies are the har- 
mony of the universe — the real music of the spheres. 
Philosophical analogy is frequently confounded by 
logicians as well as by the general writer, with rhetori- 
cal analogy : but they are quite different. Philo- 
sophical analogy consists in any resemblance between 
phenomena, less than identity; as in all the examples 
which we have given. But analogy in rhetoric is a 
mere fanciful resemblance discovered by the imagina- 
tion ; and is used for mere illustration or ornament. 
For example: "the angry ocean, the howling winds." 
Here, the stormy state of the ocean is likened to the 
anger of man ; and the noise of the winds to the 
howling of a beast. Now man is naturally angry; 
but the ocean is only metaphorically so; and the beast 
naturally howls, but the winds, only metaphorically. 
The first is founded in nature, the latter, in fancy. 
So in Shakspeare's beautiful description of concealed 
love — 

"She never told her love, 
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek." 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 131 

That the worm feeds on the bud, is a fact in nature ; 
that concealed love feeds on the cheek, is a fact in 
fancy. So in Bacon, — " But if it (the mind of man) 
work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then 
it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learn- 
ing admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but 
of no substance or profit." That the spider makes a 
web is a fact founded in nature; that the mind of man 
makes one is a fact in fancy. In these examples, it is 
easy to discern, that the analogy is purely rhetorical, 
and is used merely for illustration and ornament. But 
there are innumerable instances in the best writers 
where rhetorical analogy is used as the foundation of 
inductive inference, thus confounding it with philo- 
sophical analogy. For example, Dr. Johnson in one 
of his reported conversations, talking of tho want of 
memory, said, " No, sir, it is not true : in general 
every person has an equal capacity for reminiscence, 
and for one thing as well as another; otherwise it 
would be like a person complaining that he could 
hold silver in his hand, but could not hold copper." 
It is very obvious that this is not an argument, as was 
supposed by the great talker. There is no philosophi- 
cal analogy between the capacities of the mind and 
those of the hand — between the power of reminiscence, 
and the power to hold silver. The two instances 
cannot be brought under the same general principle or 
major proposition ; there being no analogy between 
them on which an inductive inference can be founded 
— and consequently, no argumentative conclusion can 
be drawn from the one to the other. The mind and 



132 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the physical powers belong to two different classes of 
being. Could the inductive philosopher ever draw the 
inference that he could remember one thing as well as 
another, from the fact that he could hold in his hand, 
copper as well as silver? What analogy is there 
between the two powers? Certainly, none, but such 
as rhetoric may employ by way of illustration and 
ornament. On another occasion, the same individual 
used the following remark, " N o, sir, people are not 
born with genius for particular employments or studies; 
for it would be like saying, that a man couhl see a 
great way east, but could not west." This example is 
just like the other, and its fallacy may be more clearly 
seen, by putting the last part of the sentence, first. 
Thus: " A man can see just as well east as he can 
west, therefore he has as much genius for one study as 
another." Here the conclusion does not follow from 
the premises; because there is no analogy between the 
capacity of the mind and the power of the eyes, upon 
which the inductive inference can be founded, which 
constitutes the major premiss, viz : "every being that 
can see as well east, as it can west, has as much capa- 
city for one study as another." Then, the minor pre- 
miss would be, " A man an\ see as well east as he 
can west;" and then the conclusion would follow, 
"Therefore, he has as much capacity for one study as 
another." It really appears like trifling, to expose 
such gross fallacies. But from the fact that the great- 
est minds are deluded by them, it is necessary to 
analyze them, and exhibit the nature of the error on 
which they are founded. But the most extraordinary 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 133 

instance of the confounding rhetorical analogy with 
philosophical analogy occurs in Bacon's Advancement 
of Learning and in the De Augmentis ; and it shows 
how very delusive are such fanciful analogies. Bacon 
has absolutely based a department of philosophy upon 
them ; or at least every instance which he has cited as 
an example of the subject matter of this department 
of philosophy, is tainted with the error which we are 
exposing. He tells us that there are some principles 
which are not peculiar to one science, but are common 
to several ; and the department of philosophy which 
embraces these principles, he calls Philosophia Prima, 
primitive or summary philosophy. We will cite only 
one example: An infectious disease is more likely to 
be communicated while it is in progress, than when it 
has reached its height. This, he says, is a principle in 
medicine; and that it is also a principle in morals; for 
that the example of very abandoned men injures pub- 
lic morality less than the example of men whose good 
qualities have not all been extinguished by vice, The 
resemblance here is purely fanciful, too obviously so, 
to need illustration after w r hat has been said about the 
examples above. The most remarkable fact about this 
error of Bacon, is, that at the very time he cited these 
examples of his Prima Philosophia, he had in his 
mind the distinction which we are exhibiting, though 
he certainly could not have had a very distinct appre- 
hension of it. For he makes this remark in regard to 
the examples : " Neither are these only similitudes, as 
men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, 
but the same footsteps of nature treading or printing 
12 



134 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

upon several subjects or matters." They most un- 
doubtedly are "only similitudes" and not analogies 
upon which inductive inferences can be based. And 
what is still more remarkable, in the fifty-fifth aphor- 
ism of the first book of the Novum Organum, he has 
mentioned as a source of error, the tendency in some 
minds, to " compare even the most delicate and general 
resemblances ; " and that such minds, " readily fall into 
excess, by catching at shadows of resemblance." These 
facts in relation to Bacon show the delusive nature of 
these fanciful analogies, and that though we may have 
a general notion of them, still we may be deceived in 
particular instances of even the most marked character. 
One of the most beautiful illustrations of the differ- 
ence between philosophical and rhetorical analogy is 
given by Mr. Burke in his letters on a regicide peace : 
" I am not of the mind of those speculators, who seem 
assured that all States have the same periods of infancy, 
manhood, and decrepitude that are found in indivi- 
duals. Parallels of this sort rather furnish similitudes 
to illustrate or adorn, than to supply analogies from 
which to reason. Individuals are physical beings — 
commonwealths are not physical but moral essences." 
And the same distinction is well expressed by Darwin 
in the preface to his Zoonomia: " The great creator of 
all things has infinitely diversified the works of his 
hands, but has at the same time stamped a cerlain 
similitude on the features of nature, that demonstrates 
to us, that they are one family of one parent. On this 
similitude is founded all rational analogy ; which so 
long as it is concerned in comparing the essential 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 135 

properties of bodies, leads us to many and important 
discoveries: but when with licentious activity it links 
together objects otherwise discordant, by some fanciful 
similitude, it may indeed collect ornaments for wit and 
poetry, but philosophy and truth recoil from its com- 
binations." On rhetorical analogy, is founded most of 
the beautiful flowers of speech, which under the magic 
influence of genius, spring up on the most sterile sub- 
jects to beautify and adorn them ; but it never can be 
made the foundation of inductive inference. It is 
from the nature of rhetorical analogy, that men have, 
in a great measure, formed their opinions of the force 
of analogical evidence in philosophy. It is highly 
important therefore, to distinguish between them. 

Some have confined analogy to the resemblance of 
relations, both in philosophy and rhetoric. But this is 
unphilosophical and exceedingly inconvenient in prac- 
tice; multiplying distinctions which cannot be kept 
up, by even the greatest degree of caution. In phi- 
losophy, every rational resemblance less than identity 
is analogy ; and so in rhetoric, every fanciful resem- 
blance is analogy. In rhetoric, however, the analogy 
is always between individuals of different species, and 
never between individuals of the same class. And it 
may here be remarked, that it is with rhetorical analo- 
gies, and not with philosophical, that wit is conversant : 
wit belongs to rhetoric, and not to logic. 

From the analysis which we have made of the evi- 
dence on which induction is founded, the great funda- 
mental principle of philosophical evidence is easily 
evolved. It is this: that in proportion as the analogy 



136 THE BACOKIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

between instances is stronger, our inferences from one to 
the other are made with more and more confidence ; and 
in proportion as it is weaker, they are made with less and 
less confidence. For example: an inference from one 
individual to another of the same class is made with 
more confidence than an inference from one species to 
another. The inferences of the anatomy of the human 
frame, for instance, are made with far more certainty, 
from the analogies furnished in the dissection of a man, 
than from those furnished in the dissection of any other 
animal. This principle bears the same relation to in- 
duction that the Dictum de omni et nullo of Aristotle 
does to the Syllogism. The dictum of Aristotle points 
out the connection between the premises and the con- 
clusion of the syllogism, and this points out the connec- 
tion between the particular instances and the inductive 
inference. And this principle is commensurate with 
the whole range of philosophical evidence, and em- 
braces all the classes of prerogative instances set forth 
by Bacon in the second book of the Novum Organum, 
and connects them with the inductive inferences to be 
drawn from them. In its affirmative application it 
embraces the comparison of instances, and in its nega- 
tive application the rejection of natures. It is also of 
a very practical character, as it is applicable to the 
most general as w r ell as to the most particular cases. 
And in its negative application, it checks the natural 
proneness of the human mind to make hasty induc- 
tions. We will call this principle the Dictum secun- 
dum magis et minus. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 137 

We have now presented to our readers a general 
view of logic and the method of investigation, and 
defined the limits of their respective provinces. 

It has often been disputed whether Aristotle under- 
stood the inductive process. He certainly did know 
that there was such a process, for he frequently men- 
tions it in his writings. But it is no less certain, that 
he had no idea of its scope and its great importance in 
philosophical investigations : but thought it of little 
importance in comparison with the Syllogism, as he 
supposed that natural philosophy could be discovered 
by reasoning from a few general principles, and that 
therefore, the reasoning process was everything in phi- 
losophical inquiries and induction confined to very 
narrow limits; though, at the same time, it must be 
admitted that he had some notion of the necessity of 
resorting to nature for something like principles, for, 
as an observer and collector of facts and phenomena, 
he greatly surpassed all the philosophers of his time. 
" For, in common logic, (says Bacon,) almost our whole 
labor is spent upon the syllogism. The logicians ap- 
pear scarcely to have thought seriously of induction, 
passing it over with some slight notice, and hurrying 
on to the formulae of dispute. But we reject the syl- 
logistic demonstration as being too confused, and let- 
ting nature escape from our hands. For, although 
nobody can doubt that those things which agree with 
the middle term agree with each other, (which is a sort 
of mathematical certainty,) nevertheless, there is this 
source of error, namely, that a syllogism consists of 
propositions, propositions of words, and words are but 
12* 



J 38 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the tokens and signs of things. If, therefore, the 
notions of the mind, (which are, as it were, the soul of 
words, and the basis of this whole structure and fabric,) 
are badly and hastily abstracted from things, and vague 
or not sufficiently defined and limited, or, in short, 
faulty (as they may be) in many other respects, the 
whole falls to the ground. We reject, therefore, the 
syllogism, and that not only as regards first principles, 
(to which even the logicians do not apply it,) but also 
in intermediate propositions, which the syllogism cer- 
tainly manages in some way or other to bring out and 
produce, but then they are barren of effects, unfit for 
practice, and clearly unsuited to the active branch of 
the sciences. Although, we would leave therefore to 
the syllogism, and such celebrated and applauded 
demonstrations, their jurisdiction over popular and 
speculative arts, (for here we make no alteration,) yet, 
in everything relating to the nature of things, we 
make use of induction, both for our major and minor 
propositions. For we consider induction to be that 
form of demonstration which assists the senses, closes 
in upon nature and presses on, and, as it were, mixes 
itself with action. 

Hence also the order of demonstration is naturally 
reversed. For at present the matter is so managed, 
that from the senses and particular objects they imme- 
diately fly to the greatest generalities as the axes round 
which their disputes may revolve; all the rest is de- 
duced from them intermediately, by a short way we 
allow, but an abrupt one, and impassable to nature, 
though easy and well suited to dispute. But, by our 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 139 

method, axioms are raised up in gradual succession, so 
that we only at last arrive at generalities. And that 
which is most generalized, is not merely notional, but 
well defined, and really acknowledged by nature as 
well known to her, and cleaving to the very pith of 
things. 

By far our greatest work, however, lies in the form 
of induction and the judgment arising from it. For 
the form of which the logicians speak, which proceeds 
by bare enumeration, is puerile, and its conclusions 
precarious, is exposed to danger from one contrary 
example, only considers what is habitual, and leads 
not to any final result. 

The sciences, on the contrary, require a form of in- 
duction capable of explaining and separating experi- 
ments, and coming to a certain conclusion by a proper 
series of rejections and exclusions." Notwithstanding 
this explicit avowal by Bacon that the logicians had 
some, though a very inadequate notion of induction, 
many have contended that Bacon claimed to be, and 
that he really was, the discoverer of the inductive pro- 
cess. But the fact that Bacon was not the first to 
remark upon the inductive process, does not detract in 
the slightest degree from his merit as a philosopher, 
no more than the fact that Copernicus and Kepler had 
hinted that the planets were held in their orbits by 
attraction, detracts from the immortal discoveries of 
Newton. For though Bacon did not discover the in- 
ductive process, yet he was the first to develop its 
nature as a method of investigation, \o show its trans- 
cendant importance, and to lay down rules for conduct- 



140 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ing it aright, What other men saw through a glass 
darkly, he saw clearly and confidently. It was he 
who poured the tide of fire over the fields of know- 
ledge and withered and consumed the poisonous growth 
with which they were overrun, and prepared them for 
the rich harvests which have since been cultivated by 
the illustrious laborers who have followed his direc- 
tions. When he was born, the temple of false philoso- 
phy still stood firm, and the priests w T ho ministered at 
its altars thought it eternal. He was brought up in 
the false creed, and soon learned all its mysteries; but 
his gigantic Anglo-saxon mind could not be dwarfed 
so as to wear the fetters of the schools. He saw the 
folly of the miserable pedantry which was mistaken 
for profound knowledge, and in the full strength of 
his convictions he determined to overthrow the false 
systems amongst which men had been so long bewil- 
dered, and to free the human mind from the bondage 
of prejudice and canonized authority. With this view 
he wrote the Novum Organum, and let the splendid 
discoveries of modern science attest his success ! 



PART THE SECOND * 



CHAPTER SECOND. 



The Theory of lind Assumed in the Baconian 
Method of Investigation, 



'a 1 - 1 



"We must guide our steps by a clew, (says Bacon,) 
and the whole path, from the very first perceptions of 
our senses, must he secured by a determined method." 
We will endeavor to fulfil the doctrine set forth in 
this proposition ; and, therefore, will continue in this 
chapter to develop the Baconian Method of Investiga- 
tion until we trace it up to the first impressions made 
upon the senses. In order to do this, it will be neces- 
sary to inquire into the psychology or theory of mind 
assumed in the Baconian Method of Investigation, and 
which the influence of that method upon English phi- 
losophy has caused to be developed by Locke and 
Eeid. 

As the best mode of effecting this object, we will 
first show the points of contact between psychology 
and logic, and between psychology and the method of 
investigation ; and then exhibit an outline of the two 
great systems of psychology, which have divided the 

♦The reader, who desires a deeper discussion of the doctrines of this 
part of the discourse, is referred to my "Progress of Philosophy, in the 
Past and in the Future." 2d Edition. 

141 



142 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

opinions of philosophers, and show their correlative 
methods of investigation, by developing the points of 
affiliation and doctrinal identity between them. 

The Creator of all things has established an order, 
an antecedence and sequence, in the phenomena of the 
universe of both matter and mind. The object of 
philosophy is to discover this order, by observing the 
phenomena, tracing their . relations, and ascertaining 
the laws which govern them, for the purpose of build- 
ing upon such discoveries, certain practical rules or 
arts for increasing the power of man. In the world of 
matter, we investigate the relations of material sub- 
stances, and their actions either of a mechanieal or 
chemical nature upon each other; and found upon 
these relations the mechanical and chemical arts, by 
which the physical powers of man are so much aug- 
mented in his knowing how to bring bodies into such 
circumstances as will give rise to their peculiar actions. 
So in the world of mind, we investigate the relations 
of its phenomena, their antecedence and sequence in 
the order of time, their relations to the world of mat- 
ter, and their antecedence and sequence in the logical 
order, an order peculiar to the world of mind, and 
which has no existence in the world of matter. 

The phenomena of mind may, for the convenience 
of this investigation, be divided into two classes,* 
namely, those which relate to the intelligence — to per- 
ception, consciousness, memory, induction and reason- 



*2sote. — We are well aware that the phenomena of the will constitute a 
distinct class, but the division which we have made is sufficicir.ly accurate 
for our purpose. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 143 

ing; and those which relate to the sensibility — to love, 
joy, hope, fear, anger, and all the other emotions; and 
upon the relations of the phenomena of both of these 
classes are founded certain practical rules or arts. On 
the first, arc founded logic and the method of investi- 
gation ; and on the latter, are founded, aesthetics and 
the fine arts. It is with the first class, those which 
relate to the intelligence, that we have to deal in the 
investigation which we are pursuing; as it is amidst 
them that the connexion between psychology and logic, 
and between psychology and the method of investiga- 
tion is to be discovered. Psychology, by analyzing the 
phenomena of reasoning, exhibits the fundamental 
laws of thought, which govern the mental acts in 
every demonstration : and logic exhibits the illative 
rules by which the conclusion is evolved out of the 
premises. This then is the point of contact between 
psychology and logic, the boundary where the one 
ends, and the other begins. Psychology also exhibits, 
by analyzing the phenomena of induction, the funda- 
mental law which governs the mental determination in 
every act of belief that the future will be like the past, 
or that like causes will produce like effects; and the 
method of investigation exhibits the inductive rules or 
regulative principles by which the general conclusion 
is inferred from the particular instances. And this 
is the point of contact between psychology and the 
method of investigation. It is at these points of con- 
tact, that psychology supplies the deficiencies of logic 
and of the method of investigation — gives light where 
they give none; for logic and the method of investiga- 



144 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

tion pre-suppose psychology, and depend upon it for 
their whole strength. 

But psychology penetrates still further into the 
mysteries of human thought, and as reasoning and 
induction assume the truth of the facts attested by 
sensation, consciousness and memory, it also analyzes 
their phenomena, and evolves the fundamental laws of 
belief which govern all our knowledge derived from 
these sources respectively, and thus ascertains the very 
elements of human knowledge, which admit of no 
explanation, which borrow no light from anything 
antecedent, but are self-luminous; and in this way 
supplies everything which is assumed as true in logic 
and the method of investigation. With these pre- 
liminary remarks, indicating in a general way the 
connexion between psychology and logic, and between 
psychology and the method of investigation we will 
now proceed to exhibit the two great opposite systems 
of psychology and the correlative methods of investi- 
gation. 

The great problem which lies at the threshold of 
every inquiry into the phenomena of the human mind, 
and gives to every system of psychology its distinctive 
feature, from the point of view in which we are con- 
sidering the subject, (its connexion with logic and the 
method of investigation,) is, what is the origin of our 
ideas, " those simple notions into which our thoughts 
may be analyzed, and which may be considered as the 
principles or elements of human knowledge?" There 
never have been, and never can be more than two 
theories in regard to the solution of this problem. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 145 

One is the theory of innate ideas, or primitive cogni- 
tions which are not the product of the mind's own 
activity, but are its original furniture; the other, the 
theory that all our ideas are founded ultimately in expe- 
rience, and are acquired through sensation and conscious- 
ness. These two opposite psychological theories are the 
correlatives of the two opposite methods of investiga- 
tions, the a priori method (which we have shown in the 
last chapter to be nothing more than an application of 
the Aristotelian logic out of its proper sphere,) which 
makes all absolute verity to depend upon certain innate 
principles or elements of knowledge, from which the 
mind starts and reasons out all science as legitimate 
deductions from them, in which the series of logical de- 
ductions will correspond with the series of facts subsist- 
ing in nature; and the inductive or Baconian method 
which bases all knowledge upon experience, and con- 
siders principles as mere generalized facts obtained by 
the observation of particular phenomena. We will 
first treat of the theory of innate ideas, and then show 
that it is the psychological correlative of the a priori 
method of investigation. 

The theory of innate ideas has appeared under 
different phases, and more distinctly in the writings of 
Plato amongst the ancients and Des Cartes amongst 
the moderns, than the writings of any other philoso- 
phers. Plato representing one phasis of this theory, 
and Des Cartes, the other. Plato held that there are 
in the soul certain innate ideas which form the basis 
of our conceptions and constitute the principles of our 
knowledge, and that these innate ideas were in the 
13 



146 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHV. 

soul in a prior state of existence, and are now suggested 
to the mind by individual objects presented to the 
senses. That the process of acquiring knowledge is 
mere suggested reminiscence, and the reminiscence is 
in proportion as the mind becomes acquainted with 
individual objects. For example: in the dialogue 
entitled "Phsedon," he asks, " is it upon seeing equal 
trees, equal stones, and several other things of that 
kind that we form the idea of equality* which is 
neither the trees nor the stones, but something ab- 
stracted from all these objects ?" And he answers 
the question thus: " Before we begin to see, feel, or 
use any of our senses, we must have had the knowledge 
of this intellectual equality, else we could not be capa- 
ble of comparing it with the sensible objects and per- 
ceive that they have all a tendency towards it, but fall 
short of its perfection." 

"That is a necessary consequence from the premises." 

" But is it not certain that immediately after our 
birth we saw, we heard and made use of other senses?" 

" Very true." 

"Then it follows that before that time we had the 
knowledge of that equality ?" 

" Without doubt." 

"And of course we were possessed of it before we 
were born ?" 

" I think so." 

" If we possessed it before we were born, then we 
knew things before we were born, and immediately 
after birth ; knew not only what is great, what is 
small, what is equal, but all other things of that na- 
ture." 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 147 

"For what we now advance of equality, is equally 
applicable to goodness, justice, sanctity, and in a word 
to all other things that have a real existence, so that we 
must of necessity have known all these things before 
we came into this world." 

It is manifest from this extract, that Plato main- 
tained that all our abstract notions are in the mind 
when we come into this world, and are of course first 
in the order of acquisition, and that it is by the light 
of these notions or ideas as he called them, that we 
comprehend what we observe in this world — that it is 
by the abstracts innate idea of equality that we judge 
of the instances of equality exhibited in experience — 
by the abstract innate idea of goodness that we judge 
of the instances of goodness, and so of every other 
innate idea. Thus maintaining that man has in his 
mind an innate standard of truth with which he can 
compare everything and test its verity. 

We will now exhibit the other phasis of this theory 
as taught by Des Cartes. He held that the idea of 
the infinite, and all other ideas which are particulari- 
zations of it, are not acquired ideas, but are innate in 
the mind, having been communicated to it, or inter- 
woven into its very being by the Creator, to be the 
foundation of all its acquired knowledge, and the 
guide of its future reasonings. Though he did not 
maintain that these ideas were always present in the 
mind : " When I say " (says he) " that an idea is born 
in us, or that it is naturally imprinted on our souls, I 
do not mean that it is always present in thought, for 
this would be contrary to fact; but only that we have 
in ourselves the faculty of producing it." 



148 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

It is evident that these doctrines of Plato and Des 
Cartes are substantially the same, and exhibit only 
different phases of the theory of innate ideas. 

We will now show that the theory of innate ideas 
is the psychological correlative of the a priori method 
of investigation, and is the psychology assumed in that 
method ; and that both Plato and Des Cartes actually 
adopted and used that method. Thus proving the 
proposition, both by philosophical analysis and his- 
torical fact. 

The least reflection will discover that the a priori 
method of investigation is the psychological correlative 
of the theory of innate ideas. For if all the principles 
or elements of our knowledge are an original furniture 
of the mind, and the most comprehensive principles 
stand first in the order of time in the mind, are those 
first developed to the intelligence, (as the theory of 
innate ideas teaches,) then the only method by which 
the mind can extend the sphere of its knowledge and 
build up this knowledge into science, is to combine 
these principles and deduce from them conclusions 
corresponding to the real particulars subsisting in 
nature ; and the chronological and logical order of 
our knowledge is the same. And it is also clear that 
the a priori method of investigation assumes the theory 
of innate ideas or principles; because if there are no 
innate principles, or if, in other words, a reason could 
be given for every truth, no process of deduction (and 
the a priori method of investigation is the process of 
deduction or reasoning, as we have shown in the last 
chapter) could ever have a beginning; for to make rea- 
soning the process of discovering first principles, would 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 149 

be to go on to infinity ; because, in every argument or 
process of reasoning, something must be assumed as true, 
from which our reasonings set out, and on which they 
ultimately depend. Where then, is the first starting- 
point to be had, if it be not innate ? It must be innate, 
or else it is furnished by induction : and if it is furnished 
by induction, the a priori method of investigation can 
have no existence; but is in reality, what it was in 
the hands of Aristotle, (who did not believe in innate 
principles, but that they are ascertained by induction,) 
nothing more than reasoning from principles formed 
from a hasty or imperfect induction. It is evident 
then that the a priori method of investigation assumes 
the theory of innate ideas or principles — requires them 
for its starting-points; and thus is developed the point 
of affiliation and doctrinal identity between them. 

It is thus manifest, from philosophical analysis of 
the theory of innate ideas, and of the a priori method 
of investigation, that they are psychological correla- 
tives. We will next show that they are correlatives in 
the history of philosophy also — that they are histori- 
cally as well as philosophically related — that Plato 
and Des Cartes adopted and used the a priori method 
of investigation, as well as maintained the doctrine of 
innate ideas. 

In the Phaedon, the same treatise from which we 
extracted the remarks relative to innate ideas, and the 
one in which Plato gives, though in an incidental way, 
his peculiar psychology, w T e have also a delineation of 
Plato's method of investigation, though this is given 
in an incidental way, too; for, in investigating the 
13* 



150 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

subject of the treatise, the immortality of the soul, 
he had to use both his psychological theory and his 
method of investigation. 

" Have seeing and hearing,*' says Plato, " anything 
of truth in them, and is their testimony faithful? Or 
are the poets in the right in saying that we neither see 
nor hear things truly? For if these two senses of see- 
ing and hearing are not trustworthy, the others, which 
are much weaker, will be far less such. Is it not by 
reasoning that the soul embraces truth? And does it 
not reason better than before, when it is not encum- 
bered by seeing and hearing, pain or pleasure? When, 
shut up within itself, it bids adieu to the body, and 
entertains as little correspondence with it as possible; 
and pursues the knowledge of things without touching 
them. Now, the simplest and purest way of examin- 
ing things is to pursue every particular thought alone, 
without offering to support our meditations by seeing 
or hearing, or backing our reason by any other corpo- 
real sense; by employing the naked thought without 
any mixture, and so endeavoring to trace the pure and 
general essence of things without the ministry of the 
eyes or ears: the soul being, if I may so speak, entirely 
disengaged from the whole mass of the body, which 
only encumbers the soul, and cramps it in the quest of 
wisdom and truth as often as it is admitted to the least 
correspondence with it. If the essence of things be 
ever known, must it not be known in the manner 
above mentioned?*' Plato exhibits his method of in- 
vestigation still more clearly in the following remarks 
extracted from the same treatise : "After I had wearied 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 151 

myself in examining all things, I thought it my duty 
to be cautious of avoiding what happens to those who 
contemplate an eclipse of the sun, for they lose the 
sight by it, unless they be careful to view its reflections 
in water or some other medium. A thought much like 
to that came into my head, and 1 feared I should lose 
the eyes of my mind if I viewed objects with the eyes 
of my body, or employed any of my senses in endea- 
voring to know them. I thought I should have re- 
course to reason, and contemplate the truth of all 
things as reflected from it. It is possible the simile I 
use in explaining myself is not very just, for I cannot 
affirm that he who beholds things in the glass of rea- 
son sees them more by reflection and similitude than 
he who beholds them in their operations. However, 
the way I followed was this : from that time forward I 
grounded all upon the reason that seemed the best, and 
took all for truth that I found conformable to it, 
whether in effects or causes; and what was not con- 
formable I rejected as being false." 

In these extracts we see that Plato held that " it is 
by reasoning that the soul embraces truth," and that 
the mind has the light of all truth within itself, and 
all the material within itself, upon which to exert the 
reasoning process; and that it does not stand in need 
of the ministry of the senses to gain any information 
— in a word, that all philosophy is built up by reason- 
ing from or upon innate ideas; for that all the phe- 
nomena in nature are but copies of these innate ideas, 
and are known to the mind, only by comparing them 
with these innate ideas and observing their resem- 
blance to them as their types and models. 



152 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

That the a priori method of investigation was that 
used by Des Cartes also, is clearly manifested in his 
writings. He founded all knowledge upon a logical 
basis — upon demonstration ; and considered that the 
object of philosophy is to deduce by reasoning from 
first causes, rules for the conduct of life and for the 
various arts. " It is clear," says he, " that we shall 
follow the best method in philosophy if from our 
knowledge of the deity himself, we endeavor to deduce 
an explication of all his works; that so we may 
acquire the most perfect kind of science, which is that 
of effects from their causes." In accordance with this 
view of the method of investigation to be used in 
physical science, is his theory of the mind; for he 
maintains that the idea of God, which he makes the 
starting-point in natural philosophy, is innate in the 
mind. Thus basing natural philosophy in psychology, 
and making it necessary to establish the foundation of 
psychological truths before certainty can be attained 
in physical truth. In order then to establish the 
foundation of psychological truth, he makes doubt the 
foundation of certainty and the starting-point in hu- 
man knowledge. " It is not to-day," says he, " for 
the first time that I have perceived in myself that, 
from my earliest years, I have received a great many 
false opinions as true, and that what I have built upon 
principles so badly ascertained, can be only very doubt- 
ful and uncertain. And accordingly, I have decidedly 
judged that I must sincerely undertake some time in 
my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had before 
taken on trust, and begin altogether anew from the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 153 

foundation, if I would establish any thing firm and 
constant in science/' Rejecting then, the knowledge 
of everything, and plunging into absolute skepticism, 
he sets about to prove his own existence, as the first 
problem in knowledge ; and does it by this argument : 
" I think, therefore I exist." Satisfied, that by this 
argument and the application of the principle con- 
tained in it, he had proved the reality of everything 
revealed in consciousness — the reality of his own exis- 
tence, his own thoughts, passions, &c., his next diffi- 
culty was to pass out of the sphere of consciousness, 
and prove the reality of things external to himself 
In order to do this, he must find some fact revealed in 
consciousness, (whose phenomena he had proved to be 
worthy of credit) as the starting-point of the argu- 
ment. This fact is the idea of a supremely perfect 
being, which he finds in his mind. He concluded, 
that as the mind of man is finite, it could not have 
produced by its own activity, this idea of the infinite; 
but that this idea must have some real object corres- 
ponding to it — which object is God — or in other words, 
that the idea of the absolute and infinite must have, 
from their very nature, a real object subsisting in time, 
corresponding to it. "If we carefully examine," says 
he, " whether existence belongs to a being supremely 
powerful, and what sort of existence, we shall find our- 
selves able clearly and distinctly to know, first, at 
least, possible existence agrees with him, as well as 
with all other things of which we have in ourselves 
any distinct idea, even those which are composed of 
fictions of our own mind : and next, because, we can- 



154 THE BACONIAN THILOSOPHY. 

not think existence is possible, without knowing at the 
same time — keeping in mind his infinite power— that 
he can exist by his own force, we conclude that he 
really exists, and that he has been from all eternity; 
for it is very evident from the light of nature, that 
that which exists by its own force, exists always; and 
thus we shall know that necessary existence is con- 
tained in the idea of a supremely powerful being, not 
by a fiction of the understanding, but because it be- 
longs to the true and immutable nature of such a being 
to exist; and it will be easy for us to know 7 that it is 
impossible for this supremely powerful being not to 
have in himself all other perfections that are contained 
in the idea of God, in such sort, that, of their own 
proper nature and without any fiction of the under- 
standing, they are always joined together and exist in 
God." By this argument, Des Cartes satisfied him- 
self, that the existence of a God is proved from the 
existence of the idea of such a being in the mind, and 
that thus the existence of an external reality is proved 
— that the boundary of consciousness is passed, and 
two orders of ideas are established: viz: himself, and 
the external reality; the proof of himself, resting upon 
his methodical doubt, " I think, therefore I exist," and 
the proof of the existence of the external reality, rest- 
ing upon an idea corresponding to it in his mind. 
Returning again into consciousness, he finds there, the 
idea of thought, and the idea of extension, under one 
or the other of which, he maintained, are embraced all 
other ideas; and as these ideas are radically distinct, 
he concluded that the substances of which they are 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 155 

respectively the attributes are distinct also. The world, 
then, is composed of two classses of being, spirit and 
matter, they being the substances of which thought 
and extension are the essential attributes. But the 
question occurs to him, how does he know the reality 
of matter? And he solved it thus: Because he has a 
natural impulse to believe in the objects of his sensa- 
tions, and God, whose existence he has proved, being 
perfect in his nature, has guarantied the truth of their 
testimony. Here then, is the starting-point in natural 
philosophy — God and matter. And as matter and 
motion are, to his apprehension, the only phenomena 
in the physical world, in accordance with his doc- 
trine just now proved, that the most perfect kind of 
science is that of effects deduced from their causes, 
he says, "give me matter and motion and I will ex- 
plain the universe:" and he accordingly explains all 
material phenomena by the application of mechanics 
based upon geometry, making God the prime mover 
of the universe, and the cause of all material phe- 
nomena. 

In this analysis of the Cartesian philosophy in which 
we have endeavored to present the fundamental con- 
ceptions of that philosophy in their true relations and 
logical order, without any reference to the order in 
which they stand in the writings of Des Cartes, it is 
evident that the method is a priori — that it begins 
w r ith an argument at all its salient points — that psy- 
chology is made the foundation of every truth, and 
that the very first truth in this is established by an 
argument. 



156 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

And what a miserable tissue of sophistry is the 
whole pretended argument ; resting, as it and every 
other a priori argument must, upon mere assumptions 
mistaken for innate ideas or principles. The theory of 
innate ideas and the a priori method of investigation 
are correlative systems of error. Each is necessary to 
support the other. And they have been the great 
fountains from which have flowed copious streams of 
error into every department of human knowledge. 
For psychology is the foundation of all human know- 
ledge — is the centre around which every science re- 
volves — is the light in which all other sciences are 
seen ; and in proportion as this light is true or false, is 
the correctness of all our opinions upon the great sub- 
jects of human thought. 

Having now established the point, both by philo- 
sophical analysis and historical fact, that the theory of 
innate ideas and the a priori method of investigation 
have a logical affinity and a doctrinal identity, and are 
consequently psychological correlatives, we will next 
treat of the psychological theory, that all our ideas are 
founded in experience and are acquired through sensa- 
tion and consciousness, and show that it is the psycho- 
logical correlative of the Baconian method of investi- 
gation ; and in doing this, we shall trace that method 
to the first impressions made upon the senses, and 
evolve the principles which govern every step of the 
process. 

The most profound and comprehensive remark ever 
uttered by man in the whole history of philosophy, is 
the first aphorism of the Novum Organum — " Man, 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 157 

as the servant and interpreter of nature, does and 
understands as much as his observations on the order 
of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, 
permit him, neither knows nor is capable of more." 
This proposition throws more light over the mysteries 
of nature than everything that had been written be- 
fore. It proclaims the true system of both mental and 
natural philosophy, and defines the limits and the 
modes of both the knowledge and the power of man. 
All the rest of the Novum Organum does nothing 
more than develop the great truth contained in this 
proposition. In order to exhibit its full import, we 
will divide it into the two propositions asserting two 
kindred but distinct truths, of which it is composed. 
It speaks of man as the interpreter of nature, and also 
as the servant of nature. Let us keep these two truths 
separate, and consider the proposition, first leaving out- 
what is said of man as the servant of nature, and then 
leaving out what is said of him as the interpreter of 
nature. Man, as the interpreter of nature, understands 
as much as his observations on the order of nature, 
either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, 
and does not know more. Here, it is declared, that 
the philosopher is a mere interpreter of nature, and 
that his knowledge is acquired by the observation of 
the order of nature, of both things and the mind, and 
that he does not know more. This proposition, then, 
while it proclaims that both natural and mental philos- 
ophy are confined to the observation of the order of 
nature, the antecedence and sequence of its phenomena 
just as distinctly proclaims the theory of mind, that all 
14 



158 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

our "knowledge is founded on experience — that we under- 
stand as much as our observations on the order of 
nature, either with regard to things or the mind, per- 
mit, but do not know more. But this exposition does 
not exhaust the fullness of the proposition, for it speaks 
of man as the servant as well as the interpreter of 
nature, and thus points out the mode and the limit of 
his power as well as the mode and limit of his know- 
ledge. The mode of his power consists in acting as 
the servant and not as the master of nature, and the 
mode of his knowledge consists in his interpreting and 
not anticipating nature. 

And here is at once shown the connexion between 
science and art, and the nature of both of them. Sci- 
ence consists in finding out the laws of nature; and 
art, or the power of man, consists in obeying these 
Jaws — in serving nature. Here then is evolved, out of 
the first sentence of the Novum Organum, the psychol- 
ogy or theory of mind assumed in the Baconian method 
of investigation, and which the whole scope and drift 
of that method make manifest ; that all our knowledge 
is founded in experience. And thus is at once exhibited 
the point of affiliation and doctrinal identity between 
the Baconian method of investigation and its correla- 
tive system of psychology. 

But we are not left to infer the psychology of Bacon 
merely from what he has tacitly assumed, for though 
the chief object of his writings was to give directions 
in physical inquiries, and to divert the minds of men 
from metaphysical speculations about the essence, the 
eternal reasons and primary causes of things, and thus 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 159 

to prevent them from admitting objections against plain 
experience, founded upon metaphysical notions — as 
Aristotle and the ancient philosophers had done, accord- 
ing to whose opinions physical science is the applica- 
tion of metaphysical notions to the explanation of the 
general phenomena of the universe — yet in his Ad- 
vancement of Learning, he has given a clear view of 
his theory of mind, and shows that he had a dis- 
tinct apprehension of the great outline of the psychol- 
ogy which has since been developed by Locke and 
Keid. "The knowledge of man," says he, "is as the 
waters, some descending from above and some spring- 
ing from beneath; the one informed by the light of 
nature, the other inspired by divine revelation. The 
light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind 
and the reports of the senses. So then, according to 
these two differing illuminations or originals, know- 
ledge is, first of all, divided into divinity and philoso- 
phy." Bacon is here speaking of the origin of all 
human knowledge. He says one kind is derived from 
revelation and the other from the light of nature, and 
that the " light of nature consists of the notions of the 
mind and the reports of the senses." By the notions 
of the mind, the whole scope of his writings, their 
very drift and aim, shows that he means those notions 
or ideas which are developed in consciousness, and not 
innate ideas; and it is plain, that by the reports of the 
senses he means the ideas acquired through sensation, 
though we do not assert that Bacon had apprehended, 
with scientific accuracy, these two different sources of 
knowledge, but merely that he had a general know- 



160 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ledge of them. It is manifest, then, that though 
Bacon laid great stress upon the knowledge derived 
through the senses, he did not think that sensation is 
the only source of knowledge, as some of the philoso- 
phers of the continent of Europe have ignorantly 
alleged, but that like Locke and Reid he admitted 
consciousness to be a distinct and equally important 
source of knowledge. 

We will now proceed to show that the system of 
psychology, maintained by Bacon, is identical with 
that of Locke and Reid, indicating as we proceed the 
points of affiliation and doctrinal identity between 
their system and the Baconian method of investiga- 
tion, and thus demonstrate that their system is assumed 
in that method. 

In developing the doctrines of Locke and Reid, we 
shall not so much follow in their tracks, as pursue the 
train of our own thoughts: neither shall we stop short 
at the limits to which they have developed their doc- 
trines, but will give to them more scientific complete- 
ness than they possess as developed by themselves, by 
filling up, with logical concatenations, the chasms 
which lie between the doctrines and their correlative 
method of investigation, and by modifying any doc- 
trine which they have expressed with too much lati- 
tude or expressed imperfectly, so as to make them 
harmonize in a system. 

It was the signal glory of Locke to establish the 
true theory of the origin of our ideas ; and thus to 
solve the problem which lies at the very threshold 
of psychology. The theory of innate ideas which 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 161 

we have already exhibited, had prevailed generally 
throughout the whole history of philosophy. This 
theory Locke overthrew, just as Bacon had done its 
correlative method of investigation, and showed how 
our ideas originate. In commencing his strictures 
upon the theory of innate ideas he says : " It is an 
established opinion amongst some men, that there are 
in the understanding certain innate principles, some 
primary notions, Koiviai "Ewoicu, characters, as it were 
stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul re- 
ceives in its very first being, and brings into the 
world with it." He then selects the following pro- 
positions as "having the most allowed title to innate" 
principles, namely: " Whatsoever is, is; and It is impos- 
sible for the same thing to be, and not to be." He then 
argues that these principles are not so much as known 
to the greater part of mankind, and are therefore not 
innate. "For, first, it is evident that all children and 
idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of 
them ; and the want of that is enough to destroy that 
universal assent, which must needs be the necessary 
concomitant of all innate truths : it seeming to me 
near a contradiction to say, that there are truths 
imprinted on the soul which it perceives or under- 
stands not; imprinting, if it signify anything, being 
nothing else, but the making certain truths to be per- 
ceived. For to imprint anything on the mind, without 
the mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelli- 
gible. If, therefore, children and idiots have souls, 
have minds, with those impressions upon them, they 
must unavoidably perceive them and necessarily know 
. 14* 



162 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

and assent to these truths; which, since they do not, 
it is evident that there are no such impressions. No 
proposition can be said to be in the mind, which it 
never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of." 
To the argument which had been frequently used by 
the advocates of the doctrine of innate ideas, that men 
know these innate principles, as soon as they come to 
the use of reason, he replies: "But how can those men 
think the use of reason necessary, to discover princi- 
ples that are supposed innate, when reason, (if we may 
believe them,) is nothing else but the faculty of deduc- 
ing unknown truths from principles or propositions 
that are already known ! We may as well think the 
use of reason necessary to make our eyes discover visi- 
ble objects as that there should be need of reason, or 
the exercise thereof, to make the understanding see 
what is originally engraven on it, and cannot be in the 
understanding before it is perceived by it." After 
showing that the fact that those propositions are 
assented to as soon as proposed and understood, does 
not prove them innate, and after deducing a variety 
of other arguments against the doctrine of innate ideas 
or principles, he says : " I say next that these two 
general propositions are not the truths that first pos- 
sess the minds of children; nor are antecedent to all 
acquired and adventitious notions, which, if they were 
innate, they must needs be. The child certainly knows 
that the nurse that feeds it is neither the cat it plays 
with, nor the blackamoor it is afraid of; that the 
wormseed or mustard it refuses is not the apple or 
sugar it cries for; this it is certainly and undoubtedly 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 163 

assured of; but will any one say it is by virtue of this 
principle that it is impossible for the same thing to be, 
and not to be, that it so firmly assents to these and 
other parts of its knowledge? Or that the child has 
any notion or apprehension of that proposition, at an 
age, wherein yet it is plain, it knows a great many 
other truths?" By this train of reasoning Locke has 
utterly overthrown the theory of innate ideas. This 
he does in the first book of his work on the human 
understanding. And in the second book, he shows the 
true theory of the origin of ideas or of human know- 
ledge. 

" Let us/' says he, " then suppose the mind to be as 
we say white paper, void of all characters, without any 
ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes 
it by that vast store which the busy and boundless 
fancy of man has painted on it with almost endless 
variety ? Whence has it all the materials of reason 
and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from 
experience; in that all our knowledge is founded, and 
from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation 
employed either about external sensible objects, or 
about the internal operations of our minds, perceived 
and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies 
our understandings with all the materials of thinking. 
These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence 
all the ideas we have or can naturally have, do spring." 
Such is Locke's theory of the origin of human know- 
ledge — it is all founded on experience. 

It has often been urged as an objection to this theory 
of Locke, that there are certain fundamental ideas 



164 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

which are necessarily assumed in the very conception of 
other ideas, which if derived from experience, could not 
have come into the mind, before the ideas in the very 
conception of which they are assumed ; and that con- 
sequently, these fundamental ideas are a priori concep- 
tions of the reason. Nothing can be more erroneous 
than this objection. It is founded upon an entire mis- 
conception of the whole process by which knowledge 
is acquired. It assumes, that the mind acquires one 
idea at a time; whereas this is impossible. When an 
object is presented to the senses, for example, we not 
only get an idea of the object, but we also get an idea 
of existence and unity and other ideas. " Existence 
and unity (says Locke,) are two ideas, that are suggested 
to the understanding, by every object without and 
every idea within." Now according to the reasoning 
of the objection which we are considering, the ideas of 
existence and unity, are a priori conceptions. But if 
it be asked, whether the mind has the ideas of exist- 
ence and unity before it has the idea of the object 
which suggests them, and which cannot be apprehended 
without assuming them, it surely cannot be answered 
in the affirmative. If then, it cannot be answered in 
the affirmative, these ideas are not innate, and it is 
sheer trifling, to call them a priori conceptions, by way 
of distinguishing them from ideas acquired by experi- 
ence. Because these ideas are after experience, and are 
ideas accompanying the idea of the object which has 
suggested them in experience. The ideas are tied 
together. They are related to each other, and cannot 
be conceived except under their relations. And more- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 165 

over the ideas are not all brought out in equal dis- 
tinctness in the first spontaneous action of the mind, 
but are afterwards evolved by reflection. The mind 
does not acquire one idea at a time, airy more than the 
eyes see one object at a time. Nothing is ever per- 
ceived by itself, but must be perceived in its relations 
to its concomitant ideas. It is only by abstraction, 
after ideas are acquired, that we can isolate them in 
conception. But in acquiring them, they are always 
acquired under relations — are always conceived in con- 
nection with others. And when we analyze the idea 
of an object, it is found that the idea is not formed at 
once. Impressions corresponding with every part of 
the object, are made upon the mind, and the whole are 
combined into an idea of the object. What is called 
perception, is a compound process — a sort of analytieo- 
synthetical process ; and the result is multiplicity in 
unity. Aristotle seems to have had some apprehension 
of this truth ; for as well as we recollect, he some- 
where calls perception an obscure synthesis. And let 
any one reflect for a moment on the operation of his 
mind, and he will at once see, that in the process of 
perceiving an object, the ideas of existence and unity 
do not come first into the mind : and yet in analyzing 
the idea of the object, we see that these ideas are 
necessarily assumed in it. The reasoning relative to 
these ideas, will hold good against all those which are 
called a priori conceptions, because the a priori char- 
acter is ascribed to all of them on account of the fact 
that they are necessarily assumed in other ideas, before 
which they could not have come into the mind, if they 



166 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

be acquired by experience. We will therefore, proceed 
to show the real origin of the chief of those which are 
so called. 

The ideas of time, space and cause are the chief of 
those which have been said to have an a priori origin. 
Now, we think it is clear that the first and the last are 
acquired through the impressions made in conscious- 
ness from the mind's own states and acts, and that the 
other is acquired by external perception. By contem- 
plating the operation of our own faculties, and noting 
the succession of thoughts, the idea of time is sug- 
gested by the lapse intervening between the thoughts 
as well as between our mental states at the beginning 
and the end of the process. The interval seen between 
objects certainly gives us the idea of space. And that 
things exist in space is a matter of direct perception, 
and space is perceived to be as much of a reality as 
the things which exist in it. To deny that space is a 
reality, and to say that u It is a thing which being 
nothing in itself, exists only that other things may 
exist in it," is nonsense. So, by contemplating the 
operation of the attention and the will in controlling 
our mental operations, we acquire the idea of men- 
tal power. By considering the effort by which we put 
our limbs in motion, we acquire the idea of mechani- 
cal force ; and by reflecting on the changes which are 
produced by both the mental power in the current of 
thought and by mechanical force in matter, the abstract 
conception of cause is suggested to us. By the idea 
of cause thus acquired from the surest source of expe- 
rience, our own consciousness, we invariably assign a 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 167 

cause for the changes which take place in the material 
world. And by the experience of our own intentions 
as capable of being carried into execution, by mechani- 
cal contrivances, we come at the conception of final 
cause or design as manifested in the machinery of every 
part of creation. Such, then, appears to be the origin 
of these fundamental ideas. They are all founded in 
experience. 

Another objection to Locke's theory is that necessary 
and universal truths cannot be founded in experience. 
The most prominent of these truths, on account of its 
great importance in our philosophical reasonings, is the 
proposition : u Everything which begins to exist must 
have a cause." Now, this truth is certainly not innate 
knowledge. For all the ideas, "existence," " begin- 
ning," " cause," &c, embraced in it are derived from 
experience; and the proposition merely expresses a rela- 
tion between them and affirms it to be a necessary one. 
To say then that we have knowledge of the relations 
between things of which we have no ideas at all, as we 
must do, if we say that we have innate knowledge of 
the proposition in question, and yet that the ideas em- 
braced in it are' acquired by experience, is nonsense. 
The fact that the relation is a necessary one, does not 
prove that it is not derived from experience. The idea 
of necessity, as well as the idea of consistency, belongs 
to the province of experience. The relations between 
physical things are contingent — there is no necessary 
relation between any particular cause and effect, any 
two physical facts, as far as we know, and, therefore, 
experience does not justify us in saying that there is any 



J 68 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

such necessary relation, and the philosophy of experience 
does not teach any such doctrine. Physical philosophy 
does not inquire into causation, but into constant suc- 
cession — not into efficient causes, but into the laws 
which regulate the succession of phenomena. Here, 
then, everything is contingent. But the proposition ■ 
which we are examining, belongs to a different depart- 
ment of thought. It belongs to metaphysics and not 
to physics. It is not, let it be observed, a general 
proposition embracing, by way of generalization, all 
the particular instances of relation between physical 
causes and effects, and affirming that each particular 
effect is necessarily produced by the particular fact 
which precedes it. It is higher up in the inquiry into 
the constitution of nature. It is at a point where 
physics cease to answer our interrogatories. It is at a 
step where other ideas besides those furnished by mat- 
ter must intervene to resolve the problems. Ideas 
furnished from the psychological world, the idea of 
cause evolved in consciousness, must come to our aid 
in the inquiry ; for physical nature cannot be explained 
without the intervention of these ideas. And thus we 
are lifted up above physics, but still we are on the basis 
of experience within the province of metaphysics. We 
have gotten from experience in the physical world the 
idea that tilings begin to exist, and from experience in 
the psychological world, the idea of cause; and we 
merely affirm the relation which experience tells us 
must exist between them. The necessity of the rela- 
tion is forced upon us by the contradictions, absurdi- 
ties and impossibilities to which the contrary doctrine 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 169 

would lead. The relation is not necessary in the same 
manner, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to 
two right angles. This conclusion is necessitated by 
the very laws of thought, upon the perception of (he 
relations involved in the proposition, the two sides of 
the equation being identical truths expressed in differ- 
ent forms, the same quantity being stated in the form 
of a triangle and also in the form of two right angles. 
We do not, therefore, let it be observed, in sustaining 
our doctrine, fall into the error of Condillac, that "All 
propositions in other sciences are of the nature of equa- 
tions in mathematics ;" for propositions in the physi- 
cal and psychological sciences express real relations, 
while in the mathematics, they express logical relations. 
Though, of course, propositions can be formed relative 
to physical and psychological subject matters, which 
merely express logical relations, but then, like all other 
logical propositions, the relations embraced in them 
being logical and not real, they are governed by the 
rules of logic, and not by the laws of nature, and such 
propositions are of the nature of equations in mathe- 
matics. But the relation of the predicate and subject 
of the proposition which we have been considering, is 
necessary from the nature of the relation between a 
beginning of existence and causation, as disclosed in 
experience, and not from a logical necessity, as in 
mathematical equations and other purely logical propo- 
sitions. 

The view which we have here taken of necessary 
truths, is sometimes opposed by adducing the proposi 
tion, "That the fact, that every effect within our expe- 
15 



170 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

rience has had a cause, is no adequate ground of assur- 
ance that every effect must have a cause." Now this 
is an incongruous proposition, the first branch of it 
lying in physics, and the other in metaphysics, accord- 
ing to the distinctions just now made. The causes and 
effects in the first branch are evidently physical causes 
and effects, while in the latter, efficient causes and their 
effects are evidently intended, as the word must implies 
the idea of necessity, which, as we have, shown, is not 
applicable to the relation between physical causes and 
effects, but only to metaphysical causes and their effects. 
Physical causes are nothing, as far as we know, but 
antecedent phenomena without any efficiency; and to 
say that from these we cannot infer that every effect 
must have an efficient cause is a truism : but neverthe- 
less, it has no sort of bearing upon the doctrine which 
it is designed to refute, viz : That our knowledge of 
necessary truths is founded upon experience. Because 
this doctrine does not teach, that from the mere obser- 
vation of the antecedence and sequence of phenomena 
in the physical world we can arrive at a general law of 
efficient causation : but merely, at a general law regu- 
lating the successions of phenomena. Efficient causa- 
tion lies, as we have shown, within metaphysics, and 
the experience on which it is founded, is based in con- 
sciousness, whence we get the idea of power or cause. 
Within the sphere of efficient causation, we can say, 
that every effect must have a cause; or in other words, 
that every effect must originate in a cause; or still 
further, must spring from an intelligent creator, eternal 
in himself. For in tracing up our various trains of 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 171 

thought about causation suggested in experience we 
are compelled to come to this conclusion. The rela- 
tion is clearly seen to be a necessary one, and that the 
word must implying necessity can be predicated of it. 
So, we are back again with a sure footing upon the 
doctrine, that the idea of necessity is one which belongs 
to the province of experience. 

The necessary character of mathematical truths has 
been urged as an objection to their being founded in 
experience. Now, it is obvious, that all true propo- 
sitions about a subject matter which is necessarily such 
as it is, must be necessarily true; because its qualities 
are necessarily such as they are, and the propositions 
merely predicate of the subject matter one or more of 
these qualities. This is clearly the case in mathematics. 
Quantity and number, for example, are necessarily such 
as they are; and of course, any propositions express- 
ing their properties must be necessary truths. The 
mind, by applying itself to the consideration of their 
subject matters discovers these properties, which is 
experience — and then expresses the result of that ex- 
perience in axioms. We have an intellectual experi- 
ence of the necessary properties and relations of quan- 
tity and number as realized in special cases. The 
axioms of geometry all relate to space, time, force, 
number, and other magnitudes. Now, all the axioms 
which predicate equality of either of these subject 
matters, as for instance, the one which declares that 
magnitudes are equal which Jill the same space, are 
obviously founded in experience. For what but ex- 
perience can assure us of the sameness of these subject 



172 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

matters on which the truth of these axioms depends. 
The axiom which declares that il things equal to the 
same thing are equal to one another," which is a general 
proposition of which all others expressing equality are 
but examples, is nothing more than the ordinary 
process of measurement generalized and embodied in 
words. And the propositions which relate particularly 
to space, such as "that two straight lines cannot enclose 
a space," and " that lines which cut one another cannot 
both be parallel to the same third line," are all founded 
on experience. It is impossible for us to exemplify 
either of them in thought without recurring to cases in 
actual experience, which shows that in these they 
originate. They all involve induction — a considera- 
tion of particular cases and in inductive generalization. 
The truth of the propositions is forced upon us by 
cases in daily experience. And the mind forms general 
conceptions out of these particular cases; and these 
particular cases are realized in the general conceptions. 
So then, it is seen that the axioms of mathematics, 
though they are necessary truths, are all founded on 
experience; and so therefore must be all the most re- 
mote conclusions resulting from their combination. 

As to the objection resulting from the universality of 
the propositions, this is founded upon an entire mis- 
apprehension of the doctrine of experience; and would 
go to show that induction itself, the great organ of 
experience, is not founded upon experience, for the 
great office of induction is to ascertain general or uni- 
versal truths. The doctrine of experience is not that 
we have actual experience of every inference found in 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 173 

our knowledge, but merely that all knowlege is actual 
experieuce or conclusions from actual experience, the 
general or universal conclusions which reach beyond 
actual experience, being justified by the constitution of 
our nature which constrains us to ascribe like effects to 
like causes, upon the basis of analogy which we haye 
shown in treating of induction, is the process by which 
all philosophy is built up. We, certainly, in the in- 
ductive process, are led to believe the cases in which 
we have no actual experience from those in which we 
have. The inference of universality therefore, is, in 
the strictest sense, founded on experience. For it 
is the force of the cases in which we have experieuce, 
such as their number and the strength of their analo- 
gies, which justifies us in drawing a universal conclu- 
sion embracing cases in which we can have no actual 
experience without being omniscient — without the 
past, the present and the future being all alike within 
our immediate cognition. A priori knowledge belongs 
to God only. 

Here we have arrived at the point of affiliation and 
doctrinal identity, between the psychology of Locke, 
and the method of investigation of Bacon, namely, 
that all our knoidedge is founded on experience. This 
is the theory of mind with all its correlative doctrines, 
that is assumed in the Baconian method of investiga- 
tion. This theory of mind teaches that we begin 
with the knowledge of particulars and proceed to the 
knowledge of generals, as is taught throughout Lockers 
writings; and that nothing but particulars producing 
particular effects has any real existence; and that 
15* 



174 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

generals are nothing more than the conceptions of the 
mind formed from the contemplation of particulars, 
and are not real archetypal existences as Plato thought, 
by which the natures of particulars are comprehended. 
Though Locke had, as we have shown, solved the 
great fundamental problem of psychology, and thus 
laid the foundation of mental philosophy, yet he had 
assumed in that solution a most erroneous theory in 
regard to the manner in which the mind perceives both 
external objects and itself. He assumed the ideal 
theory, that ideas or images of things in the mind, 
and not things themselves are the only objects of 
thought, which had prevailed universally from the 
earliest history of philosophy. Bishop Berkeley, after 
the time of Locke, showed that this doctrine led irre- 
sistibly to the denial of the existence of the material 
world ; because if we perceive nothing but ideas, there 
is no ground for inferring that any material world 
exists; as there is nothing in ideas to indicate such a 
fact. But Berkeley held that the mind does perceive 
itself immediately, and therefore concluded that the 
spiritual world has a real existence. Hume, who was 
instigated by a passion to overthrow all belief, philo- 
sophical as well as religious, in order that he might 
engulph all knowledge in absolute skepticism, had the 
acumen to pierce through the inconsistency of Berke- 
ley's doctrines in regard to the spiritual world, and his 
doctrines in regard to the material world, and showed 
that Berkeley had no more right to hold that the mind 
perceived itself immediately, than he had to hold that 
it perceived the material world immediately; and as 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 175 

Hume held the ideal theory to be true, he turned the 
arguments which Berkeley had used against the exist- 
ence of the material world, against the existence of the 
spiritual, and showed that a denial of its existence is 
also a legitimate deduction from the ideal theory. So 
that a Christian bishop and an infidel philosopher had, 
by their joint labors, shown that a doctrine in which 
they both believed, and which had prevailed univer- 
sally in the philosophical world for several thousand 
years, proved beyond a doubt that the universe of both 
matter and mind is all an illusion ; and that nothing 
exists but certain ideas governed by laws of constant 
succession. 

Thus had skepticism, by attacking English phil- 
osophy on a point where it had inadvertently based 
itself upon error, utterly overthrown it. But in the 
order of Providence, a champion for the truth appeared 
in Reid, who, imbued with the true spirit of English 
philosophy, had the sagacity to perceive that the con- 
clusions of Berkeley and Hume, are a redudio ad 
absurdum of the ideal theory, and at once set about 
to examine it; for up to this time, he had believed in 
its truth. He showed that when applied to the sense 
of sight, there is something plausible in the theory, 
that the mind perceives the images of things and not 
things themselves, but that when applied to the other 
senses, it is perfectly absurd. "As to objects of sight/' 
says he, "I understand what is meant by an image of 
the figure in the brain : but how shall we conceive an 
image of their color where there is absolute darkness? 
And as to all other objects of sense, except figure and 



176 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

color, I am unable to conceive what is meant by an 
image of them. Let any man say what he means by 
an image of heat and cold, an image of hardness or 
softness, and an image of sound or smell, or taste. 
The word image, when applied to these objects of 
sense has absolutely no meaning." By this and many 
other modes of reasoning, Reid showed beyond a 
doubt, that this theory is a mere hypothesis feigned in 
a vain endeavor to fathom the mystery of the union 
between body and soul, between mind and matter. 
Yet he did not attempt to substitute for it any theory 
of his own, of the manner in which the mind per- 
ceives external things; as he considered this beyond 
the sphere of philosphy. " How a sensation," says he, 
"should instantly make us conceive and believe the 
existence of an external thing altogether unlike to it, 
I do not pretend to know ; and when I say that the 
one suggests the other, I mean not to explain the 
manner of their connexion, but to express a fact, 
which every one may be conscious of; namely, that 
by a law of our nature, such a conception and belief 
constantly and immediately follow the sensation." 
Though Reid did not attempt to show the manner in 
which the mind perceives external objects, for this is 
impossible; yet he has solved the second great prob- 
lem in psychology as Locke has solved the first. 
The second problem is, upon what does our knowledge 
of the existence of the material and spiritual worlds 
rest? How do I know these are not illusions, as 
Hume and Berkeley have taught? We have shown 
how Des Cartes has answered these questions — that he 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 177 

based their solutions upon argument — upon demon- 
stration : which is the basis upon which the theory of 
innate ideas must forever found it; as that theory 
knows no belief independent of or anterior to demon- 
stration. And though Hume (for we will now take 
leave of Berkeley) adopted the theory of Locke, that 
all our knowledge is founded ultimately upon expe- 
rience, yet he agreed with Des Cartes, that all belief 
is founded upon demonstration, and thus formed an 
inconsistent mongrel creed, which is the hallucination 
of the skeptic, who, seeing in his own mind contra- 
dictory opinions, concludes that this is the character of 
truth. Reid, therefore, taking as the foundation of 
his inquiry, the truth of Locke's doctrine (though it 
must be admitted that Reid does not always appear 
to comprehend fully his relation to Locke in the 
development of English psychology,) that all our 
knowledge is founded ultimately in experience, by a 
most profound and accurate analysis of mental phe- 
nomena, proved that there is in the mind, an element 
of belief independent of demonstration, and evolved 
the great fundamental laws of human belief; and thus 
laid open to the eye of philosophy what it had so long 
sighed after, and toiled for through so many thousand 
years — the solid foundations of absolute verity, and 
raised up English philosophy from the abyss into 
which Hume had so coldly and stealthily piloted her. 
As Locke had shown that the elements of knowledge 
are not innate, and that neither are they acquired by 
reasoning, but through sensation and consciousness, 
Reid, true to these principles of him whom God in his 



178 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

providence had made his forerunner and master, 
though as we have already said, he did not seem to 
comprehend the fact, strove, and successfully, to dis- 
cover the psychological laws which govern human 
belief in regard to the knowledge acquired through 
these original sources. The law of belief which 
governs the knowledge acquired through sensation, 
he showed to be, that such is the constitution of human 
nature, that man cannot but believe in the reality 
of whatever is clearly attested by the senses. And he 
showed that the law of belief relative to the phe- 
nomena of consciousness, is, that such is the constitution 
of human nature, that man cannot but believe in the 
reality of whatever is clearly attested by consciousness. 
He showed these to be ultimate facts in psychology, 
incapable of resolution into simpler elements. That 
human intelligence cannot penetrate deeper into the 
mysteries of faith. That here man finds laws of 
imperative command to believe, and that man cannot 
but believe. These laws are constituent elements of 
the mind. The mind must be annihilated before these 
laws can cease to operate; for the sane mind obeys 
by necessity. Disobedience is impossible except in 
insanity, and even then disobedience is only partial. 
Another fundamental law of belief Reid showed to 
be, that man is so constituted that he cannot but believe 
in whatever he distinctly remembers. This law is aux- 
iliary to the others; for without this law, the other 
two would be nearly useless. But the great funda- 
mental law of belief, upon whose broad foundations, 
all science immediately rests, the law of inductive 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 179 

belief, which is the only guide to our knowledge in 
the darkness of the future, the law by which the mind 
infers the future from the past — that like causes will 
produce like effects — still remained undiscovered ; and 
the dauntless skepticism of Hume stood in the very 
vestibule of the temple of philosophy, boldly declaring 
that man cannot know any thing but what he has 
actually seen or been conscious of; and that even this 
knowledge must be verified by reasoning, as all cer- 
tainty rests upon demonstration. Reid, therefore 
showed by a most rigid analysis of mental phenom- 
ena, that man is so constituted that he cannot but believe 
that like causes will produce like effects ; and that the 
future will be like the past: and thus discovered the 
great fundamental law of belief which governs the 
mental determination in the inductive process; and 
thereby connected the whole mental theory of Locke 
and himself with the Baconian method of investiga- 
tion ; for this is the point of contact between psychol- 
ogy and the method of investigation, as we showed in 
the beginning of this chapter. Reid has therefore 
solved the second great problem in psychology; and 
showed that, the Baconian method of investigation 
which maintains that induction, and not reasoning, is 
the paramount process in the acquisition of knowledge, 
and that perception, and consciousness, and induction, 
and not reasoning, are the ultimate foundations of 
verity, has assumed a correct theory of the human 
mind. 

According to English psychology then, the mind of 
man is developed from without inwards — sensation 



180 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

being exerted before consciousness, consciousness before 
induction, and induction before reasoning. As Reid 
showed that in the various exertions of thought there 
is not in the mind, any object distinct from the mind 
itself, but that what philosophers had called ideas or 
images of things in the mind, are nothing but the 
thoughts or acts of the mind, the doctrine of English 
psychology that all our knowledge is founded ulti- 
mately upon experience, means that the powers of our 
mind are dormant until awakened into consciousness 
by some impression made upon the senses ; and that as 
soon as this is done, the knowledge of two facts is 
acquired at once, that of the existence of the object of 
sensation, and of the person's own existence as a sen- 
tient being; and thus two orders of ideas or notions 
are established, the mind, and that which is not the 
mind ; and that the original elements of all our know- 
ledge are suggested to the mind by some such occa- 
sions — that certain impressions on our organs of sense 
are necessary to suggest to the mind a knowledge of 
external things, and to awaken it to a consciousness of 
its own existence, and to give rise to the exercise of its 
various faculties; and that after consciousness is thus 
awakened, it becomes a source of ideas or notions 
distinct from those of sensation — that the ideas of 
colors, sounds, hardness, extension, and all the quali- 
ties and modes of matter are received through the 
senses; and that the ideas of memory, volition, imagi- 
nation, anger, love and all the acts and affections of 
mind are suggested in consciousness ; and that it is 
from the materials thus furnished in the way of expe- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 181 

rience, that the mind by combining, abstracting, gene- 
ralizing, and so forth, builds up all knowledge. 

This mere historical order of the development of 
the mind shows that particulars are known before 
generals; and that consequently, perception is exer- 
cised before induction, and induction before reasoning; 
because perception informs us of particulars, induction 
of generals, and reasoning sets out from generals, and 
is therefore dependent on induction for the truth of its 
premises ; and consequently there cannot be an a 
priori method of investigation. 

English psychology, then, has discovered the origin 
of human knowledge, and the fundamental laws of 
belief, which govern the two original sources of this 
knowledge, sensation and consciousness, and also the 
fundamental laws of belief, which govern the induc- 
tive inference of a general conclusion from particular 
instances exhibited in sensation and consciousness, and 
shown that these fundamental laws of belief are 
elements of the mind itself; and consequently ultimate 
facts in psychology; and thus, by strict analysis of 
phenomena, laid open the whole mental process of 
acquiring knowledge, and established the basis of 
absolute verity. 

We have then in accordance with the proposition of 
Bacon quoted at the beginning of this chapter, a sure 
foundation to tread on through the whole path of 
investigation, from the very first perceptions of the 
senses, to the highest generalizations of induction — 
having the fundamental laws of belief developed by 
Reid, to stand on safely and confidently in admitting 
-16 



182 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

the information of the senses, the information of con- 
sciousness, the information of memory and the' con- 
clusions of inductive inference. 

We have purposely deferred until now, the exami- 
nation of a system of philosophy, which has done 
more directly and indirectly, than any other system, 
to prevent the spread of the doctrines of Locke and 
Reid. We allude to the philosophy of Kant. The 
empirical skepticism of Hume, which had been so 
entirely refuted by Reid, is reproduced under a dog- 
matic form, in this philosophy. The writings of Reid 
are directed against the skepticism which attacks the 
very primary laws of thought, in the empirical form 
in which Hume presented it. When, therefore, it is 
presented by Kant in the dogmatic form of the tran- 
scendental philosophy, it is no easy matter to detect 
the fallacy. Hume by an ingenious sophistry, and a 
perversion of the doctrine of Locke, that all our know- 
ledge is founded on experience, attempted to make it 
appear in his essay on a special providence and a 
future state, that this doctrine leads to atheism, by 
endeavoring to show, that many truths which are 
necessary to sustain the doctrines of natural theology, 
and a future state, have no valid existence at all; as 
they can not be found in experience, the only source 
of knowledge. Amongst the most important of these 
truths, is that of causation. He maintained that we 
have no real idea of cause, that it is a mere figment of 
the mind ; as it has no prototype in experience — 
nothing real to communicate such an idea to the mind. 

With this potent doctrine of skepticism, Hume 
entered upon the field of human knowledge, and 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 183 

maintained that all reasoning concerning matters of 
fact is founded upon the relation of cause and effect, 
and as there is in reality no such relation, there is 
therefore, no evidence to assure us of any matters of 
fact lying beyond our senses. Kant captivated by the 
ingenious sophistry of Hume, was awakened, as he 
himself says, from the dogmatic slumber in which he 
had been reposing. Unable to pierce through the 
fallacy of Hume, and discover that the idea of cause, 
as we have already shown, is founded in experience, is 
derived from the consciousness of power in ourselves ; 
and not from the external world at all, from the suc- 
cession of events in the physical world, as Hume 
supposed it must be, if founded in experience : for he 
covertly assumes in his essay, that the doctrine of 
experience confines the origin of our knowledge to 
the senses. Kant regarded this argument of Hume 
as a reducfio ad absurdum of the doctrine, that all our 
knowledge is founded on experience. He therefore 
concluded, as he could not get rid of the idea of 
cause, that it must be a necessary truth — a truth not 
derived from experience, but arising with it — a truth 
written as it were on the miud, but requiring contact 
with the external world to make it legible. And 
agreeing with the skeptical conclusion of Hume, that 
there is nothing in the external world corresponding 
with it, he maintained that it is a purely subjective 
idea. 

Here then, is the starting-point of Kant: — There 
are truths which we do not derive from experience, 
which come neither from sensation nor from conscious- 



184 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

ness, which can be neither proved nor disbelieved. "I 
first enquired (says he) whether the objection of Hume 
might not be universal, and soon found, that the idea 
of the connection between cause and effect is far from 
being the only one by which the understanding, a 
priori, thinks of the union of things; but rather, that 
metaphysics are entirely made up of such conceptions. 
I endeavored to ascertain their number, and when 
guided by a single principle, I had succeeded in the 
attempt, I proceeded to inquire into the objective 
validity of these ideas; for I was now more than 
ever convinced that they were not drawn from expe- 
rience, as Hume had supposed, but that they came 
from the pure understanding." Though Kant did not 
maintain, as this quotation shows, the theory of innate 
ideas, which was refuted by Locke, yet he maintained 
one of like import, and of the same logical conse- 
quences. He maintained that there is an a priori as 
well as an a posteriori element in our knowledge; and 
that in fact the a posteriori element cannot become 
knowledge strictly so called, until it is combined with 
the a priori element — that it cannot be cognized before 
this combination. 

In order to bring out this doctrine of Kant more 
distinctly, we will endeavor to present his view of the 
processes by which the mind builds up knowledge. 

When we look at an object, there are certain impres- 
sions made upon the mind corresponding with all the 
various parts of the object, and these impressions pro- 
duce intuitions; and the idea of the object is not 
formed until these intuitions are combined by the 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 185 

mind into unity in consciousness. In this way ideas 
are formed out of intuitions. Ideas are then formed 
into judgments, by the understanding, recalling the 
notion of unity, and thereby combining them. Intui- 
tions are thus, the matter of ideas, and ideas are the 
matter of judgments. The next and the highest step 
in knowledge, is to bring judgments to unity, which 
is done by reasoning — by combining the judgments 
under the forms of the reason, or according to the laws 
of thought. 

But there are certain a priori conceptions of the 
reason, which belong to the same class with the idea 
of cause, that constitute the conditions on which all 
these operations depend, and without which, these 
operations are impossible. All intuitions are, for 
example, reduced to unity under the a priori concep- 
tions of time and space. All ideas are reduced to 
unity under the a priori conceptions of quantity, quality, 
relation or modality, called after the manner of Aris- 
totle, the categories. And lastly, the unity of judg- 
ments is produced under the a priori conception, 
either of substance, the absolute totality of phenomena, 
or* of a supreme being which contains all others. All 
these fundamental notions are called the forms of 
reason, and reason with respect to them, is called 
pure reason. They are a priori conceptions of the 
reason itself, produced by its own spontaniety, or 
existing in its spontaniety, and are not furnished by 
experience. 

Every act of knowledge therefore, is dependent on 
the a priori conceptions of the reason. Without them, 
- 1(3* 



186 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOx^HY. 

there can be neither ideas, judgments nor reasoning. 
These a priori conceptions are inherent in the mind; 
and without them the mind could have no knowledge. 
They 'are the conditions, as well as the measure by 
which knowledge is tested. It is manifest then, that 
the logical relations of these a priori conceptions of the 
reason, are precisely the same with those of innate 
ideas, and have exactly the same function in the 
method of investigation. And accordingly, Kant 
maintained an. a priori method of investigation, just 
as Plato and Des Cartes with their innate ideas, and 
Aristotle with his empirical general conceptions, did. 
He maintained that the great work in building up 
philosophy, consists in establishing the greatest pos- 
sible unity of judgments; and that this is done by 
reasoning. He maintained, that there are three gene- 
ral forms of reasoning, the cateyorical, the hypothetical, 
and the disjunctive; and that each of these forms of 
reasoning are dependent for its validity upon a priori 
conceptions of the reason, which give unity to the 
judgments embraced in the processes. What he means 
by categorical reasoning is when the conclusion is 
embraced in the very conception of the premises; and 
is what we have exhibited as the reasoning process. 
But what he calls hypothetical reasoning, is what we 
have exhibited as induction, and is not reasoning at 
all, as we have shown. We will pass over disjunc- 
tive reasoning, as of no use in our inquiry; as we 
have shown already, that there is but one process of 
reasoning, and consequently our doctrine excludes 
this form of reasoning, as distinct from categorical 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 187 

reasoning which we have shown to be the process of 
reasoning 

Let us then, dwell upon what Kant calls hypotheti- 
cal reasoning; as this is the one, of his three forms 
of reasoning, to which we wish to direct especial atten- 
tion ! This form of reasoning is what we mean by 
induction, as has been said before. Now Kant main- 
tained that experience cannot furnish the fundamental 
notion upon which the validity of hypothetical reason- 
ing or induction, depends, viz : the notion of the absolute 
totality of phenomena. That the all of the conclusion 
is not embraced in the some of the premises ; for how- 
ever large the number of facts observed, the number 
is limited and represents nothing absolute; and that 
consequently, the reason must furnish, the a priori 
conception of the absolute totality of phenomena, which 
gives validity to the process. As we have already 
examined at large the nature of the inductive process, 
and shown that it is not a reasoning process at all as 
this theory of Kant assumes, but that it is radically 
distinct from the reasoning process, what is there said 
shows the futility of this doctrine. And we have 
shown that it is by a fundamental law of thought, that 
we draw the inductive inference of the all in the con- 
clusion, from the some in the premises, or more prop- 
erly, instances; and that it is upon the quantum of 
evidence (the number of particulars and the strength 
of their analogies,) that the validity of the inductive 
inference depends; and that from the constitution of 
our nature, we confide in the truth of the universal 
inference, just as we do in the validity of what we 



188 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

see or are conscious of. The validity therefore, of 
the inductive conclusion, does not depend upon any a 
priori conception of the absolute totality of phenoni- , 
ena. And if it did, it would be equally valid, whether 
many or few particulars are examined ; and thus the 
nature of induction as a process founded upon evidence 
— upon the number of particulars observed, — would 
be denied, and it be made a logical process deriving 
its validity from a logical basis, contrary to the intrin- 
sic nature of the whole process. 

This theory of Kant also leads to skepticism, as we 
have before said. He maintains, as the quotation 
made above shows, that these a priori conceptions of 
the reason have no objective reality, nothing corres- 
ponding to them, in nature; and that consequently, 
what are called laws of nature, are nothing but the 
laws of our minds, imposed, as it were, upon nature: 
the phenomena of nature necessarily passing before the 
mind's comprehension in the order w r hich these regu- 
lative principles of the thoughts called a priori con- 
ceptions, give to them. His philosophy therefore, as 
set forth in his chief work, " The Critique of Pure 
Reason " leads to Atheism just as inevitably as Hume's, 
from the negative pole of which it sprung. And so 
sensible was Kant of this consequence, that in his 
" Critique of Practical Reason " he endeavored to base 
natural theology in the moral part of our nature, 
overlooking the fact, that as all the ideas must still be 
furnished by the reason, he was still entangled in the 
toils of his peculiar logical theory. 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 189 

This a priori element of the Kantian philosophy 
pervades in some form or other, the whole of the 
German philosophy, tilling it with all the error which 
we have shown must result from the docrine of innate 
ideas ; and in the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel 
consummating its fullest development, by going the 
extravagant length of making the absolute which is 
perceived by a sort of intuition, embrace the whole of 
existence and knowledge. And as this a priori ele- 
ment, is in its connection with logic, the same as the 
doctrine of innate ideas, we have sometimes in this 
discourse used language relative to the German philo- 
sophy which perhaps requires this explanation; for 
otherwise it might perhaps be thought, that we in- 
tended to teach, that the doctrine of innate ideas in 
the form taught by Plato and Des Cartes pervaded 
the German philosophy. All that we mean by such 
expressions, and we use them for convenience, in our 
extensive generalization, is that the doctrine of innate 
ideas and that of a priori conceptions of the reason, 
arc logically the same. They both equally put know- 
ledge upon an a priori basis, and are both therefore 
psychological correlatives of the a priori method of 
investigation, though, the doctrine of innate ideas is 
more strictly so : logically they are the same doctrine, 
differing only in form and degree. And in accordance 
with this view of their logical identity, we sometimes 
speak of all a priori systems as transcendental ; because 
they all equally maintain that there are in the mind, 
a priori conceptions which transcend the sphere of 
phenomena ; and are neither circumscribed by expe- 



190 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY, 

rience, nor derived from it, by the activity of the 
mind exercised upon its phenomena. 

We will here, as the most fitting place, expose the 
last phase of that false method of philosophising which 
ignores the humble induction that Newton ~did not 
think too low for his genius, and affects to pursue a 
higher and more intellectual path of investigation. 
We will do this by an analysis of the Physio-Phi- 
losophy of Oken, late Professor of Natural History at 
the University of Zurick. For Oken is recognized 
as having carried the method of Schelling into physics, 
with more success than any other philosopher of the 
German school. 

In his book Oken professes to deduce the All from 
the Nothing. He boldly assumes that the processes of 
nature and the processes of ratiocination are parallel 
and identical ; and that reasoning and creating are the 
same. 

His book is in three grand divisions, Mathesis, 
Ontology, and Biology. As nature or the universe 
is a development from unity to multiplicity, so these 
divisions bear a relation of development to each other. 
Mathesis treats of the whole ; Ontology, of singulars ; 
and Biology, of the whole in singulars. Nothing is 
the starting point, and everything is the goal to which 
the ratiocination conducts. Such being the plan and 
the scope of the book, we will show how its purposes 
are accomplished, and what doctrines it teaches, by 
quoting from each division a few sentences as samples. 

The fundamental doctrine of the book is enounced 
in these words : u The universe or world is the reality 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 191 

of mathematical ideas, or in simpler language, of 
mathematics." And " this (says the book) is not to 
be taken in merely a quantitative sense .... but in 
an intrinsic sense, as implying that all things are num- 
bers themselves." Such being, according to the book, 
the nature of the universe, the science which explains 
it must, of course, be mathematical. Accordingly, the 
book says : " Philosophy is the recognition of mathe- 
matical ideas as constituting the world, or the repeti- 
tion of the origin of the world in consciousness." In 
conformity with this notion of the province and end of 
philosophy in general, the book defines its own special 
science in these words: " Physio-Philosophy has to 
show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, 
the material took its origin ; and therefore, how some- 
thing derived its existence from nothing. It has to 
portray the first periods of the world's development 
from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies 
originated ; in what method by self-evolution into 
higher and manifold forms, they separated in min- 
erals, became finally organic, and in man attained self- 
consciousness." 

As Man, according to Oken, is the last object whose 
origin and nature is to be accounted for, his book tells 
us, at once, Man's relation to all of nature that origi- 
nates before him in these words: "Man is the summit, 
the crown of nature's development, and must compre- 
hend everything that has preceded him, even as the 
fruit includes within itself all the earlier developed 
parts of the plant. In a word, Man must represent 
the whole world in miniature. Now, since in Man 



192 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

are manifested self-consciousness or spirit, Physio-Phi- 
losophy has to show that the laws of spirit are not 
different from the laws of nature : but that both are 
transcripts or likenesses of each other." Such is the 
conception of science given in the Introduction to the 
book. And it is clear, that every rational cosmology 
must, in logical consistency, assume that the laws of 
spirit and those of nature are likenesses of each other. 
On no other hypothesis is such a science possible. 

With such doctrines enounced in the Introduction, 
the book proceeds to the first division, Mathesis. It 
is in this fundamental part of the treatise, that Oken 
puts out his strength ; for it is here that he has to 
educe something from nothing. And mathematics is 
the instrument by which he is to do this. The 
marvellous ratiocination thus performs the creative 
process : " The highest mathematical idea, or funda- 
mental principle of all mathematics is zero = 0. The 
whole science of mathematics is based upon zero. 
Zero alone determines the value in mathematics. 
Zero is nothing in itself. Mathematics is based upon 
nothing and consequently arises out of nothing. Out 
of nothing therefore it is possible for something to 
arise, for mathematics, consisting of propositions, is a 
something in relation to 0. Mathematics itself were 
nothing if it had none other than its highest principle 
zero. In order, therefore, that mathematics may 
become a real science, it must, in addition to its 
highest principle, subdivide into a number of details, 
namely, first of all into numbers, and finally into 
propositions. What is tenable in regard to mathe- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. i 93 

matics must be equally so of all the sciences; they 
must all resemble mathematics." This reasoning 
reminds us of the Irishman's mode of casting can- 
non : "Take a hole, to be sure, and pour the melted 
iron around it." 

But let us see how Oken steps from Mathematics 
to Nature. "The Eternal (says he) is the nothing of 
Nature. As the whole of mathematics emerges out 
of Zero, so must everything which is singular have 
emerged from the Eternal. or Nothing in nature." 
And further: "The continuance of Being is a con- 
tinuous positing of the Eternal or of the nothing, a, 
ceaseless process of being real in that which is not. 
There exists nothing but nothing, nothing but the 
Eternal, and all individual existence is only a falla- 
cious existence." As the book proceeds it becomes a 
little more specific; and, therefore, we find the nothing 
becoming more tangible, as in the following: "The 
line is a long nothing, the surface a hollow nothing, 
the sphere a dense nothing; in short, the something 
is a nothing which has received only predicates. All 
things are nothings with different forms." And these 
nothings are combined and held together in a world 
by nothing. For the book says: " Gravity is a 
weighty nothing." So much for the decirine oi 
nothing pregnant with everything ! 

As the book, as we have shown, declares in the 
outset, that all things are composed of mathematical 
ideas, the reader will doubtless be curious to know 
how such a doctrine can be applied to man. "Man 
(says the book) in the whole of arithmetic compacted, 
. 17 



194 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

however, out of all numbers; he can, therefore, pro- 
duce numbers out of himself." And nothing daunted 
in his convincing ratiocination, Oken tells us — " The- 
ology is arithmetic personified." From this notion of 
theology, we will show what are Oken's ideas of 
God. 

"God (says the book) is a rotating globe. The 
world is God rotating." Again : " God previous to 
his determination to create a world was darkness; in 
the first act of creation, however, he appeared as fire. 
God's whole consciousness, apart from individual 
thoughts is fire — the world is none other than a 
rotating globe of fire." "Every thing that is has 
originated out of fire." The presumption of such 
declarations as the foregoing, calls to our mind what 
old Emerson, the British mathematician, said in his 
Algebra, of John and Daniel Bernouilli: "These 
men talk as if they were God Almighty's privy 
councillors, and that nothing was made without their 
advice." 

We will now proceed to the second division, Ontol- 
ogy, and exhibit some of its doctrines. And we will 
first quote a luminous passage on the nature of light: 
" Light is time that has become real." And the nature 
of water is thus expounded : " If the essence of water 
consists in the contest between form and formlessness, 
it must thus seek to produce fluidity everywhere." 
And the metaphysical nature of rain is revealed in 
this intelligible sentence : " All rain is the extin- 
guished function, the dying spirit of air." And of 
the sun it is taught: "The sun is a true gelatinous 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 195 

animal, a body trembling through its whole mass, and 
therefore phosphorescent." The following consumma- 
tion in geology is instructive: " Salt concludes the 
growth of the earths; it is the eruption or break- 
ing out of the soul, as the metal was the body of 
earths completed. Both finally pass into a higher 
world, the metal into the corporeal, the salt into the 
psychical." 

Our readers are perhaps tired of such philosophy, 
we, therefore, will conclude, after we have given a few 
sentences from the last division, Biology: " Galvanism 
is the principle of life. There is no other vital force 
than galvanic polarity. ... A galvanic pile pounded 
into atoms must become alive. In this manner nature 
brings forth organic bodies." " Light shines upon the 
water and it is salted. Light shines on the salted sea, 
and it is alive." " The whole sea is alive." 

We will finish our citations with the following : 
" Gazing upon a snail, one believes that he finds the 
prophesying goddess sitting upon the tripod. What 
majesty is in a creeping snail, w T hat reflection, what 
earnestness, what timidity, and yet at the same time 
what firm confidence! Surely a snail is an exalted 
symbol of mind slumbering deeply within itself." 

We have given our readers a glimpse of the last 
consummation of German speculation. Jacobi said, 
that when he read Oken he did not know whether he 
was standing on his head or his feet. We have read 
the ponderous volume more than once, to see how 
baneful is a false method of philosophizing, destroy- 
ing the common sense of the ablest minds. For it 



"196 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

must not be supposed by our readers that Oken was 
either a fool or a madman. Professor Agassiz, in his 
masterly essay on classification prefixed to his Natural 
History of the United States, thus speaks of Oken : 
* 'About the time Cuvier and the French naturalists 
were tracing the structure of the animal kingdom, and 
attempting to erect a natural system of zoology upon 
this foundation, there arose in Germany a school of 
philosophy, under the lead of Schelling, which ex- 
tended its powerful influence to all the departments 
of physical science. Oken, Kieser, Bojanus, Spix, 
Huschke, and Cams, are the most eminent naturalists, 
who applied the philosophy to the study of zoology. 
But no one identified his philosophical views so com- 
pletely with his studies in natural history as Oken. 

" Now (proceeds Agassiz) that the current is setting 
so strongly against everything which recalls the Ger- 
man physio-philosophers and their doings, and it lias 
become fashionable to speak ill of them, it is an im- 
perative duty for the impartial reviewer of the history 
of science, to show how great and how beneficial the 
influence of Oken has been upon the progress of science 
in general, and of zoology in particular. It is, more- 
over, easier, while borrowing his ideas, to sneer at his 
style and his nomenclature, than to discover the true 
meaning of what is left unexplained in his most para- 
doxical, sententious, or aphoristical expressions ; but 
the man who has changed the whole method of illus- 
trating comparative osteology — who has carefully 
investigated #the embryology of the higher animals, 
at a time when few physiologists were paying any 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 197 

attention to the subject, who has classified the three 
kingdoms of nature upon principles wholly his own, 
who has perceived thousands of homologies and analo- 
gies among organized beings entirely overlooked before, 
who has published an extensive treatise of natural his- 
tory containing a condensed account of all that was 
known at the time of its publication, who has con- 
ducted for twenty-five years the most extensive and 
complete periodical review of the natural sciences ever 
puplished, in which every discovery made during a 
quarter of a century is faithfully recorded, the man 
who inspired every student with an ardent love for 
science, and with admiration for his teacher — that man 
will never be forgotten, nor can the services he has 
rendered to science be overlooked, so long as thinking 
is connected with investigation." 

We quote this passage from Agassiz, both to show 
the position of Oken in the history of science, and to 
censure the unqualified praise bestowed on a philoso- 
pher with so false a method of philosophizing. The 
"thinking connected with investigation" must be sub- 
ordinated to facts. And especially must the physical 
and the spiritual be discriminated, which is not done 
by Oken, and we are sorry to say, is not sufficiently 
done by Agassiz himself in his writings on natural 
history. We therefore set off the nonsense which we 
have adduced from Oken against the praise by Agassiz, 
without putting ourself to the trouble of showing that 
Agassiz underrates the pernicious influence of the Ger- 
man physio-philosophical method of investigation, by 
proving, from his own writings, that he often employs 
it himself. 



198 THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

We have now, in the two chapters of the second 
part of this discourse, exhibited an outline of the 
method of investigation, the processes, the starting- 
points and the foundations, of the English or induc- 
tive philosophy, and contrasted them with those of the 
a priori system of philosophy, in order that men may 
see, from the contrast, how solid are the foundations 
of the philosophy which has formed the opinions and 
mental habits of the Anglo-Saxon race ; and also that 
men may have a touchstone of philosophical criticism, 
by which to test the reigning speculations of the day. 
For such is the increasing taste, in both this country 
and England, for the transcendental speculations of 
the German philosophers, that unless something is 
done, to check its progress, our old English philoso- 
phy will be cut loose from its strong anchor of common 
sense; and be driven off from its ancient moorings, to 
be dashed and tossed by every wind of speculation, 
upon the boundless ocean of skepticism. 

At the time this book was written, and when the 
first and second editions were published, the dominant 
error in the field of speculation, was the doctrine of 
the absolute and infinite, as maintained in various 
forms in Germany. Therefore it is, that critical hos- 
tility was chiefly directed against that doctrine. At 
this time, however, a very different doctrine is con- 
spicuous in the field of speculation, specially sensuous 
in its essence, and may be appropriately designated the 
" dirt philosophy." Mr. Herbert Spencer is the lead- 
ing champion of it, as it appears in alliance with what 
has taken the name of Darwinism. As the doc- 



THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. 199 

trines maintained in this discourse are as antagonistic 
to this " dirt philosophy," as they are to the philosophy 
of the absolute and the infinite, it is not necessary to 
give it special consideration, the discourse being de- 
signed to establish the principles of the inductive 
philosophy. 



The End, 



T. 



p' 



